


Linger

by SunriseinSpace



Series: bb!Jim stories [1]
Category: Star Trek (2009)
Genre: Allusions to Child Abuse, Canon Compliant, Kid Fic, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-03
Updated: 2012-03-03
Packaged: 2017-11-01 01:35:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 23,992
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/350533
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SunriseinSpace/pseuds/SunriseinSpace
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Jim? Baby, who were you talking to?”</p>
<p>“Just George, Mommy.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Linger

There’re strange noises — almost like laughter, with the occasional crash-thud of something hitting the floor or wall — coming from behind Mommy’s door. He goes to see if Sammy’s noticed, but his brother is staring determinedly at a PADD and when Jimmy tugs on his brother’s arm to get his attention, Sam shakes him off impatiently.  
  
“Go ‘way, Jimmy. Y’made me mess up!” he scowls, jabbing at the device and turning away from Jimmy. Jim sits there for a little while longer, staring at the couch cushion and chewing on his lip, glancing up occasionally to see if Sam’s changed his mind. He hasn’t, so Jimmy climbs down off the couch and heads for the stairs.  
  
Standing outside Mommy’s room, he scuffs his toe in the carpet a couple times, hoping maybe she’ll know he’s there and open the door. He’s not surprised when she doesn’t, looking up through his bangs at the knob like it’ll bite him or something. He’s not s’posed to bother Mommy when her door’s closed, that’s what Sammy always says, but he’s worried about Mommy so he reaches for the knob anyway.  
  
“No, Jim, don’t do that.” A hand closes over Jimmy’s, keeping him from opening the door, but somethin’s weird — Jimmy can see the hand and his five-year-old mind tells him that if he can see it, _it has to be there_ , but he can’t _feel_ it. Eyes wide, chin trembling, he looks up.  
  
There’s a man there, taller’n Mommy, with kind blue eyes that crinkle at the edges as he returns Jim’s stare. He’s familiar looking, Jim decides, someone nice that would always play games when Jim was bored and would never tell him to ‘shut up, Jimmy, I’m busy’. Besides, he reasons, he wouldn’t be in the house if he were a bad man; Mommy’s made sure of that, with doors that buzz until you push the buttons the right way and windows that don’t open unless Mommy does it, no matter how hard Jimmy pushes and pulls on ‘em.  
  
“Who’re you?” Jimmy chirps, but another sound from behind the door distracts him. “Do you know what’s wrong with Mommy?”  
  
The tall man hesitates, hand still around Jim’s, then crouches in front of him, his other hand coming to rest on Jim’s right shoulder (Jimmy’s eyes widen again when he does that — he still can’t feel it and it’s _weird_ ). “My name’s George, Jimmy, and your mommy’s very sad. Do you know what today is?”  
  
Jim lights up at the question. “Yeah, it’s my birfday!” he all-but shouts, excited in the same way any five-year-old gets. Jim grins hugely, blue eyes shining over missing baby-teeth, glad someone’s finally remembered. “I’m five today,” he declares proudly, shoving his splayed fingers in George’s face.  
  
“Yes, I know you are,” George smiles back, stroking the side of Jimmy’s face with a sad sort of fondness. “Do you know what else happened today?”  
  
Jimmy frowns, looking down at the carpet between his feet. “Yeah, my daddy died,” he mumbles, peeking up through his bangs. “Izzat why Mommy’s sad?”  
  
“Yeah, Jimmy,” George breathes, “that’s why your mommy’s sad.”  
  
“Should I go give her a hug? Hugs always make me feel better when I’m sad,” Jimmy offers, mouth twisting in doubtful hope as he looks back up into George’s blue eyes. He starts to reach for the doorknob again, pulling his hand out of George’s despite the older man’s protests.  
  
“No, Jimmy, that’s not—”  
  
“Jim?” Winona asks, just before the door swings open. Jim looks up with a smile, all blue eyes and chubby cheeks as he rushes forward to wrap his arms around Mommy’s legs. “Baby, who were you talking to?”  
  
“Just George, Mommy,” he answers guilelessly, chin on her thigh as he looks up at her. Glancing over his shoulder, he can still see George kneeling in the hallway, forehead wrinkled and face sad. Mommy makes a strange sound, not a laugh but kinda like it, and presses a hand to her mouth, red-rimmed eyes welling with tears. “Look, Mommy, he’s right there,” Jimmy points, scared he’s upset his mom again.  
  
“She can’t see me, Jimmy,” George says, hands resting on his knee as he watches the two of them. “Oh, Winnie,” he sighs, pulling himself up to his feet, reaching out to cup Winona’s cheek in one hand. Winona jumps and pulls away from Jimmy, staring wildly around the hallway.  
  
“There’s no one there, Jim, don’t tell stories like that. J-just stop it.” She’s backing away from the doorway, staring down at her son as he tries to figure out what he’s done wrong.  
  
“But, Mommy, he’s really here,” Jim insists, stomping one small foot noiselessly on the carpet. “He’s gots crinkly blue eyes like Grampa Ti and he says his name is George.”  
  
“Stop it!” Winona shrieks, hands against her ears and eyes screwed shut. Jim jumps back as she reaches for the door and slams it shut, the sound echoing through the hall until George places one hand against it. Turning quickly, he kneels in front of Jimmy again, hands on both slight shoulders gripping until his fingertips turn white and Jimmy can almost — _almost_ — feel it.  
  
“It’s okay, Jimmy. It’s not your fault, it’s mine, I shouldn’t have— You’re not in trouble, okay?” Jim nods, chin trembling, blue eyes luminescent with tears. George swipes his thumbs across Jim’s cheeks, though it does nothing for the tears that break free. Jim sniffles once and scrubs his sleeve across his face and nose, not even noticing that his arm moves right through George’s hands. When Jim looks up again, George has pulled his hands back, studying Jim’s face and eyes with another sad smile. He opens his mouth to say something when Sam comes thundering up the stairs.  
  
“What’re you doing, Jimmy?” he hisses, grabbing hold of Jim’s arm and towing him roughly down the hall to their rooms. “I told you t’leave Mom alone. Why don’t you lissen t’me?” Jim babbles some protest, trying to shove his older brother off him.  
  
“Lemme go, Sam!” he cries, pulling and tugging until they’re wrestling in the hallway, Sam trying to shut Jim up and Jim trying to get away from Sam. George watches them roll around in the floor until Jimmy manage to pull free of Sam’s hands and runs for the stairs, thundering haphazardly down them. George shadows him, making sure Jim makes it to the bottom unharmed, and Sam follows, hollering at his brother as he goes.  
  
“I’ll see you later, Jimmy,” George sighs to the empty downstairs, the laughing shrieks of the boys wafting vaguely through the front door as they run around the front yard, throwing handfuls of snow at each other.  
  
+  
  
“Jim- _mee_ , don’t bother me!” Sam groans, shoving Jim away from where he’s leaned against his older brother. Pouting, Jimmy trudges up the stairs, staring resolutely at his feet as he passes his mom’s open bedroom door. It’s been a month and she still won’t believe him when he tells her about George; worse, she won’t talk to him the same way anymore, especially if Sam isn’t in the room. Jimmy still doesn’t know what he did, but George promises him it’s not his fault, so Jimmy figures it really _isn’t_.  
  
Bored, Jim heads to Sam’s room instead of his own, poking around his brother’s things for something interesting to do. Stacks of PADDs teeter on the bookcase, threatening to topple at any second so Jim steers away from those. The bright blue PADD on Sam’s bed is full of cool stories and Jimmy’s tempted to ‘borrow’ it for a while, but when he goes to climb up, he stubs his toe on a box peeking out from under the bed. Scowling, holding his toes in one hand, Jimmy drops onto his stomach on the floor and tugs out the box, infinitely more intrigued with this than the PADD. There’s a key-code lock on the front of the box, but Jimmy long ago figured out that Sam uses the same lock-code for everything, so it’s easy to open the box.  
  
“Wow, cool,” Jimmy breathes, staring at the stuff inside. Dozens of real paper books with cool titles like _Son of a Wanted Man_ and _Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea_ , _The Lord of the Rings_ and _The Bourne Identity_. When Jimmy pulls one out and flips open the cover, he sees Sam’s name inside, only not quite — it’s not Sam’s handwriting and it just says George Kirk, not George Samuel. Curiously, Jimmy stacks the books beside the box to get to what’s underneath.  
  
A handful of miniature cars, colorfully painted with old-fashioned wheels. A t-shirt with a funky looking symbol and the words ‘Starfleet Academy’ printed across the front. A blue shirt wrapped around an old comm, the cover cracked and spitting only static when Jimmy pries it open. A couple of PADDs that refuse to turn on, no matter what buttons Jim pushes. A framed holopic of Mommy in a pretty white dress, blue eyes shining above a huge smile, something Jimmy’s never seen before. When he lifts the frame out, a handful of loose holopics fall back into the box. Frowning, Jim fishes them back out.  
  
“That’s me,” George says, reaching over Jim’s shoulder to point at the tall man standing next to Mommy. Looking up curiously, Jimmy studies George’s face, then looks back down at the picture. Sure enough, the man in the fancy jacket _is_ George and Jimmy frowns again as he tries to figure out this new puzzle. “Huh, I wondered what had happened to these,” George mumbles, poking at the stack of books, finger sinking up to the first knuckle into the spine of one.  
  
“You’re...my dad?” Jimmy asks, nose wrinkled in confusion. George turns to look at him, blue eyes twinkling as he watches the little boy. Jim glances down at another of the holopics, where Grampa Ti’s arm is thrown over George’s shoulders and they’re both smiling, eyes crinkled at the corners. When Jim looks back up, George nods. “But...”  
  
“I never wanted to leave you and your mom, Jimmy. I need you to believe me, okay?” Jim nods and George smiles at him, eyes as bright as his son’s. “Now, come on, kiddo. Let’s put these up before your brother gets mad, okay?” Jim nods again and starts scooping things back into the box, keeping a car, a holopic, and one of the books for himself before shoving everything back under the bed.  
  
He takes his loot to his bedroom, hiding the holopic and car, then hopping up on his bed and opening the book, thumbing through the pages until George offers to read it to him.  
  
“When Mr. Bilbo Baggins of Bag End announced that he would shortly be celebrating his eleventy-first birthday with a party of special magnificence, there was much talk and excitement in Hobbiton...”  
  
+  
  
“Jimmy,” George sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose as he stares down at his sulking son. Jim just tightens his arms across his chest, his scowl darkening as he watches his mom dance with Frank. “Jim, come on, now. I know you don’t like Frank, but he makes your mom happy, okay? That’s what matters.”  
  
“I thought she loved _you_ ,” the sullen eight-year-old pouts and George winces at the venom in the child’s voice. Bad enough that Sam tried to run away — _again_ — when Winona told them the news; if Frank catches sight of Jim’s glower, things’ll go downhill fast.  
  
“Jim, your mom’s been alone for a while now. Doesn’t she deserve to be happy?”  
  
Jim opens his mouth to respond and George is sure it isn’t going to be with anything good, when Winona appears in front of him.  
  
“Jimmy, time for pictures, baby,” she says, smiling and face glowing, though there’s something strangely flat about her eyes. She looks at the people standing around Jim, briefly studying their faces. “Who’re you talking to?”  
  
“ _George_ , Mom,” he answers. Somehow, he’s never shifted into calling George ‘Dad’, least not in front of his mom. Still, she freezes, smile melting from her face as she stares down into Jim’s blue eyes.  
  
“I told you not to play like that, Jim.” Even her voice is stiff, as though the slightest movement would shatter her. “Now, come on. Pictures.”  
  
She drags him through the crowds of people to the crepe-draped pavilion, tugging on his suit jacket until it lies straight and wrinkle-free across his shoulders. Jim slouches as soon as she removes her hands, the scowl twisting his face even darker than before. Sam elbows him and rolls his eyes; Sam doesn’t like Frank, either, but he’s quieter about it, preferring to sneak out in the middle of the night rather than face him.  
  
“Jim, don’t ruin this for her,” George admonishes from behind the photographer, hands on his hips as he levels a glare at his son.  
  
“Why did she have to marry him?” Jim asks loudly, deliberately pushing every button likely to lead to disaster.  
  
“Not right now, Jimmy,” George hisses back, as though everyone could hear him. Sam elbows Jim again, harder than before, and Winona’s fingers go white around her bouquet. Frank shifts and casually puts his arm around Jim, hand resting loosely on his left shoulder.  
  
“It’s not fair,” Jim insists, and the hand on his shoulder gets tighter.  
  
“ _Jim_ ,” Winona whispers harshly.  
  
“Jimmy, stop it. You know better than this. We had a deal,” George reminds him, pushing past the photographer until he’s right in front of the eight-year-old, desperately trying and failing to get his hands around Jim’s, to calm him down and keep Frank’s temper under control.  
  
“But I don’t like—” The fingers on Jim’s shoulder are suddenly white with tension and Jim yelps, tries to pull away as Frank smiles fixedly at the photographer and holds on. Winona’s torn between defending her son and attacking him for the spectacle he’s making and Sam just edges away from his brother and new stepfather. Tears rise in Jimmy’s eyes as he squirms but can’t get free. “Daddy,” he whimpers and George can’t take it anymore.  
  
The tripod support for a large basket of flowers suddenly snaps, the entire stand tilting at an extreme angle as the weight of the basket tips it forward. Guests scream in alarm as basket after basket falls, pulled by each other’s weight against the crepe tied around each pole. Shocked, trying to get out of the way, the wedding party scatters, Jim pulling free of Frank’s grasp to completely leave the pavilion, running full-tilt into the nearby cornfield. George sighs and looks around at the chaos subsuming the celebration, guests crowded around Winona and Frank as they try to salvage the pictures.  
  
No one notices the absence of the little Kirk boy, even after the photographer once again tries to organize a good shot.  
  
+  
  
Jim sniffles, glaring into the stalks of corn as he scrubs at his nose with his right hand. His entire left shoulder hurts, a deep, radiating ache that intensifies when he moves it. His eyes well again as it throbs particularly sharply and he remembers the way his mom and brother just stood there and watched.  
  
“Jim?”  
  
The familiar voice seeps into Jim’s raw nerves, soothing him away from jumping at every rustle the corn makes. George steps through a row of corn, blue eyes concerned as he looks Jim over, taking in the tear streaked cheeks and the way he’s curled in on himself, protecting his shoulder and bruised heart. With a sigh, George sinks to the ground in front of him, just as he first did three years ago, and runs a hand down Jim’s left arm.  
  
“I hate him,” Jim mumbles, crossing his arms and wincing when his shoulder throbs again. George sighs again, a harsh, frustrated sound that makes Jim look up in surprise — he’s never heard George get really upset, not with him, at least.  
  
“I know, kiddo. But you’re gonna have to follow his rules, listen to him.”  
  
“I don’t _wanna_!” Jim knows he’s whining like a baby, but his shoulder hurts and he’s still mad at what happened.  
  
“Jim, he’s your mother’s husband, your father,” and George chokes on the word, whipping his head around to glare over his shoulder, jaw clenched as he stares through the corn and away from his son.  
  
“He’s not! He’s not my father! _You_ are!” Jim shouts, pounding his fists on the ground, heedless of the rough dirt and his aching shoulder. “You’re my father! I don’t want him, I want _you_!” he insists and the tears in his eyes break free again, carving runnels through the dust on his cheeks.  
  
“I know, Jimmy, I know.” George is suddenly right there, arms around Jim but Jim _can’t feel it_ and it makes it worse, makes it hurt more, and he’s sobbing, wailing at the pain, while George murmurs softly in his ear and the sun finds its way hot through the cornstalks.  
  
+  
  
“Waaaaahoooo!” Jim shouts, wind and music rushing around him as the top flies off and away from the car, landing who knows where behind him. Cornfields flow past as he revs the engine and goes faster. He blows past Sam, waving enthusiastically at his brother as he does, barely keeping control of the Corvette. Settling back in the seat, he decides that this is _it_ — _this_ is the greatest feeling in the _world_.  
  
“What the hell do you think you’re doing, Jim?” George shouts over the music, perched on the passenger seat and hands braced on the dash as he faces his son. Jim spares him a glance but the car wobbles as he does so, nearly careening out of the barely-there control the ten-year-old has over it.  
  
“He’s got everything else!” Jim hollers back, hands white around the steering wheel as he glares out the windshield. “I’m not gonna let him have this!”  
  
“Jimmy, it’s a car, it doesn’t matt—” George sucks in a breath as the car wobbles again. “You’re gonna get yourself killed! Goddammit, Jim, _please_.”  
  
But Jim just grits his teeth and presses his foot down on the accelerator, depressing it as far as it will go, and the needles on the dash go wild. They streak past a resting cop, ending up nearly a mile ahead of him before he catches up, siren wailing. George is shouting again, but Jim blocks him out, focusing on the music and feel of the car under him.  
  
“Citizen, pull over!” the cop calls and Jim doesn’t want to, never wants to, wants to get away from Frank, from Sam leaving and his mom gone again. From the hand over his on the steering wheel, the hand he can’t feel and never will but _desperately_ wants to. He jerks the wheel to the side, sending them careening down a gravel road and through a chain-link fence.  
  
Signs for the quarry are scattered all around, warnings and legalese in languages Standard and alien, and Jim never slows down. George is silent next to him — Jim’s not even sure he’s still in the car, maybe he’s had enough of Jim, enough of the ‘runt Kirk boy’, ‘the crazy one’, ‘poor Winona’s _special_ child’. Jim doesn’t care, he doesn’t, and the quarry’s right there, _right there_ , and he’s not stopping, he’ll never stop, he just wants, he wants to, he—  
  
At the last second, he shifts gears and hits the brakes, diving out of the car as he realizes there isn’t enough time. He flies through the air, awkwardly graceful, with flailing arms and stiff, uncooperative legs, until he lands hard on the edge of the quarry. Momentum continues to drag at him, pulling him closer and closer to the very edge, and he’s scared now but can’t show it, literally can’t make himself express the fear. He curls his fingers into the dirt, scrabbling for any purchase, and some distant part of his mind wonders why it doesn’t hurt as much as it should. He fell off Sam’s hoverscooter once, skinned the entire length of his left forearm, and it hurt like hell, tingling and fire-hot as he lay there in shock after the fall.  
  
He blinks and George is right in front of him, hands curled tension-white around his wrists, pulling with all of his (insubstantial) strength as Jim continues his inexorable slide toward the edge. At the very edge, the very last second, he stops, hanging limply over the lip for a moment before somehow finding the strength to pull himself back up. He climbs shakily to his feet, not noticing how George’s hands linger on his shoulders, clenched tight on the fabric of his jacket.  
  
With a deep breath and a last look at the shrieking mass of twisted metal plummeting to the bottom of the quarry, Jim turns his back to the chasm.  
  
“Is there a problem, officer?” he asks the cop planted in the middle of the gravel road, only a little breathless.  
  
“Citizen, what is your name?” After his almost-suicide, the cop’s mechanized voice isn’t scary at all.  
  
“My name is James Tiberius Kirk!” Jim declares, throwing his shoulders back and ignoring the indecipherable look George is leveling his way.  
  
+  
  
Needless to say, Frank isn’t happy with the loss of the car. In less time than Jim ever thought possible, he’s bundled onto the next shuttle heading off-world, his aunt and uncle on Tarsus IV expecting him by the end of the week.  
  
“Sam’s your mother’s brother,” George tells him, voice quiet in the same way it’s been since Jim crashed the Corvette. Jim doesn’t care, staring out the viewport, hands wrapped tight around the strap of his bulging knapsack.  
  
After Frank picked him up from the police station, Jim had been banished to his room, where he found Sam’s box of their father’s belongings hidden in the bottom of his closet. A note tucked inside the cover of a book of Greek and Roman mythology told him Sam wasn’t planning on coming back to the little farmhouse. And when Frank brusquely informed him of his trip to Tarsus, Jim hadn’t cared about taking anything other than the contents of the box with him. He only left _The Lord of the Rings_ , his dad’s class ring, and a single holopic wrapped in one of George’s old t-shirts and tucked under the loose floorboard behind his bed, the most precious things he’d ever owned, safer off his person than on it.  
  
“Sam and Gwen are good people, Jim.” George just doesn’t seem to get that Jim really doesn’t care _who_ his aunt and uncle are, he’s just grateful for the chance to get away from Frank for a while. He’s tired, though, having spent the night reading through _The Return of the King_ one last time, while he had the chance.  
  
Jim pulls his feet up into his seat, resting his head against the viewport to watch the stars drift past until he starts to drift off. George’s hand presses weightlessly on Jim’s knee as he watches him from the floor, seated cross-legged against the bulkhead because of the lack of empty seats.  
  
“You’ll be happy with them, Jimmy,” George whispers, just as Jim sighs and falls asleep.  
  
+  
  
“Jimmy.” The whisper wakes Jim out of nightmares and shallow sleep. Jim sits up in the bed, scrubbing at his eyes, and looks around for the kid.  
  
“What, Kevin?” he whispers back, keeping his voice down even though there’s no one else in the room — there’re cameras all around, for ‘his safety’, and he doesn’t trust the people watching from the other side. He doesn’t trust very many people at all these days.  
  
“Jimmy, you gotta help me.” A strange pang of sickening déjà vu sweeps through Jim and it’s all too easy to remember the last time Kevin asked that. His back still aches from the mostly-healed lashmarks and Kevin had died anyway, begging for his mom as they dragged him away. So, it’s with no small amount of trepidation that Jim climbs out of his bed and follows Kevin over to the computer console on the other side of the room.  
  
He’s finally off that planet, away from the dry, yellow soil and the baking sun, the smell of ozone and sickly-sweet decay, though it still takes him a few moments every morning to convince himself it isn’t a dream. The star-filled black outside the window of his cabin on the _Concord_ helps, grounding him in a way he couldn’t begin to explain. The cool air and readily available food and water help, too, but make him feel sick with guilt, especially with Kevin following him around.  
  
“It’s noon back on Earth, Jimmy,” Kevin informs him solemnly and Jim has no idea how the kid knows that, but he accepts it as the truth it probably is. He wakes the computer out of hibernation and pulls up a messaging program as Kevin continues to ramble on. “She’ll be eating lunch right now, Jimmy, sitting at her computer with a sandwich before going back to work. She always came home to eat lunch with me, even if she had to stay on the computer.”  
  
“Focus, Kevin,” Jim hisses at the kid, wanting this done and over with, wanting to go back to sleep, wanting things back to normal, the way they were before that planet. ‘Cause, ever since the _Concord_ came, George’s been gone and Kevin’s been here, and Jim wants him _back_.  
  
Twenty minutes later, the door of Jim’s room slides open, just as Jim finishes the last of his coding and sends the message — priority-mail, secure packet. Kevin’s eyes shine supernova-bright over the edge of the desk and Jim can’t help but grin back, pleased as always that he’s been able to do something for the kid. When the nurse frowns at his expression, Jim quickly wipes his face blank, staring down at the breakfast tray she brought with her and hoping she doesn’t decide to make a big deal about one of his rare smiles.  
  
When she pulls out her comm to call a doctor, Jim realizes today’s going to be worse than normal and rolls his eyes, bracing himself for the onslaught of questions sure to come.  
  
Kevin just smiles sadly at him from behind the nurse’s back.  
  
+  
  
“Jim! Jimmy!” Winona cries, shoving through the crowds until she can wrap her arms around her son. He stands there and bears it, skin crawling with the need to push her away, while she clings and cries against his shoulder. “Jimmy, Jimmy, Jimmy,” she moans against his neck and he should feel something, he thinks, something other than slight boredom, something other than an antsy need to get away.  
  
A dark-haired woman in Starfleet grays winds her way through the crowd and Jim pulls away from his mom, pushing and shoving people to reach her. There’s pity in every eye that meets his and he knows how he must look, with his gaunt face, spindly arms, and still dusty, too-long hair. But he doesn’t care what they think. He’s got a mission and the goal is right there (he thinks he sees the occasional flash of crinkly blue eyes, but they’re always gone when he turns his head).  
  
“Ma’am? Ma’am!” he calls, finally catching up with her and tugging on her sleeve.  
  
She turns and faces him, shading red, tired eyes from the sun with one hand. There’s a defeated slump to her shoulders that he recognizes from the adults on Tarsus, one that speaks of heartbreak and loss, and she’s got that same guilty, sleepless glaze over her eyes that he’s seen so many times in his mom’s.  
  
“Ma’am, I’m Jim Kirk and I knew your son, Kevin.” The rapidly in-taken breath and hand fluttering vaguely at her mouth are familiar, too. “I was the one that sent you that message, from the _Concord_. And Kevin wants me to tell you that he doesn’t blame you. That he loves you and doesn’t want you to cry for too long, ‘cause he doesn’t like it when you’re sad.” He doesn’t actually see Kevin anywhere around but the words are just there, practically falling out of his mouth.  
  
“Wha— Is he, is he here?” she asks, staring around Jim with more acceptance and belief in her eyes than he’s ever seen in his own mom’s — he ignores the stab he feels when he notices.  
  
“No, but he’s okay now. He’s not hurt or sick or hungry or anything and he just wanted me to tell you, okay?”  
  
She swallows harshly, hand clenched at her mouth, before blinking away the tears gathering in her eyes and reaching for him. “Thank you,” she breathes against his ear and this, _this_ feels more real than his mother’s hug. Tears prick his eyes and he bites his lip to stave them off.  
  
“Jim!” he hears distantly and he closes his eyes, trying to hold onto this feeling of homecoming for a little bit longer. But Ms. Riley’s pulling back, stroking her fingers through his dusty hair before moving off into the crowd again, disappearing almost immediately in the throng. “Jim!”  
  
He closes his eyes and braces himself against the crush of his mother’s retroactive concern and fussing, her fluttering hands and half-wild eyes as she reassures herself that Jim’s safe and alive, back on-planet where he belongs.  
  
For a brief moment, he envies Kevin.  
  
+  
  
 _“See the cloud in the water, Jim? You can’t drink it, it’s been fouled. See how the plants at the edges died?”  
  
“Jim, wake the kids, I hear someone coming, you’ll have to run for it. Carry the littler ones if you need to. Come on, kiddo.”  
  
“No, Jim, not that one, this one. See the berries? No black spots, right? The black spots mean they’re poisonous. These red ones, though, those’ll hold you for a little while, okay? Okay, Jim? Jim?”_  
  
“Jim?”  
  
Jim gasps as he bolts upright out of sleep, heart pounding and sweat soaking his pajamas. He clenches his fingers in the blankets, trying to pull himself out of the dreams (memories) and back into his bedroom. It takes him a few minutes, but gradually he can makes out the vague shapes of his dresser, the desk, the closet door and the shadow-blurred images ground him in reality. As he finally manages to take a deep breath, his eyes pick up on one very important addition to the familiar furniture in his room.  
  
“Dad!” he cries, quietly because it’s after midnight and his mom’s asleep (because anyone could be lurking in the shadows). He scrambles out of the covers, slinging his legs over the side of the bed and starting to rise to rush over to George.  
  
Between one blink and the next, George is sitting next to him on the bed, capable hands closing around one thin wrist to anchor Jim to the bed. It strikes him harder than normal, the absolute lack of sensation when George touches him, and tears rise unbidden to his eyes as he pulls free of George’s hold. Smiling sadly, George gestures at the light on the nightstand and Jim quickly turns it on, illuminating soft blue eyes as they wander carefully over Jim’s face.  
  
“That was a good thing you did with Kevin, Jim,” George murmurs and Jim almost wants George to call him ‘Jimmy’, like he would before...everything. But Jimmy is what the kids called him and it brings back too many memories, too many mistakes and lost chances. So he dredges up a smile for his dad, glad to see him again after almost a month without him.  
  
He doesn’t ask where George went during that time, or why he couldn’t have had George and Kevin. He’s tried that before — back when he was little and they were still figuring this out — and it’s always seemed to be more a case of George being unable to tell than unwilling. Instead, he just curls back up under his covers and tugs the t-shirt hidden under his pillow out where he can bury his nose in it. It doesn’t smell like anything in particular, but the soft, over-washed cotton is comforting in his hand and under his cheek, the smell of a detergent his mom doesn’t use anymore wrapping like a security blanket around his heart.  
  
With his eyes squeezed closed tightly enough, he can imagine he actually feels the hand stroking gently over his head and across his shoulders, can pretend the t-shirt actually smells like memories and familiarity, can almost make himself believe his dad’s actually here in the room with him, solid and reassuring as he chases the monsters out from under the bed and scares the nightmares away.  
  
And it’s not like anyone really sees the few tears that slip down his cheeks at the thought so, as far as Jim’s concerned, it doesn’t really happen.  
  
+  
  
“Look, it’s the crazy Kirk kid. Talkin’ to your poor dead daddy again, Jimmy?” Finnegan sneers, glancing back at his cronies with a triumphant look on his face. Jim looks up at his call, the use of his old nickname drawing a cold shudder down his back, even as Finnegan’s words spark a hot ember of anger deep in the pit of his stomach.  
  
“Jim, don’t,” George tries, face wooden, as if he seems to realize how futile the words are. Ever since Tarsus, Jim’s been on a hair-trigger, easy to anger and eager for the rush of adrenaline that comes with high emotions. Even now, five years later, it’s all too simple for idiots like Sean Finnegan to push Jim’s buttons. Fruitlessly, George tries to catch Jim’s arm, to keep him where he is, but that touch has never really been there and Jim keeps going, deliberately ignoring George as he walks over to where Finnegan and goons are standing.  
  
It doesn’t matter at all that Finnegan’s a burly senior and Jim’s a wiry freshman. Jim gets right in Finnegan’s face, grinning wickedly as he shoves the taller kid back, both hands firmly planted in the middle of Finnegan’s chest. His goons catch him, keep him from hitting the ground and push him back at Jim, giving him extra momentum as he pulls up a fist and swings at the shorter blond. Jim ducks to avoid it, launching his shoulder into Finnegan’s gut, felling the senior. Still grinning, he’s ready for the next shot aimed at him, deflecting it and knocking down one goon, turning to face the next. Their anger and frustration are almost palpable in the air — this isn’t their first go-round with Jim but this is the general tone of every encounter, Jim’s size and experiences allowing him to easily dance in and around most of their attempts to beat the crap out of him.  
  
The fight continues for a little while without any actual hits, feints and dodges on both sides turning it on its head until it’s more of a dance routine than a brawl. Out of the corner of his eye, Jim can still see George, leaned against the tree where Jim had been studying, blue eyes indecipherable, face reading mild disgust. It’s his expression that distracts Jim, takes his attention completely away from the fight long enough for O’Sullivan to break through his defense and land a solid blow to Jim’s cheekbone, knocking him completely off his feet. He lays there in shock for a second, pain radiating in waves through his face, still entirely transfixed by George’s apparent disgust. Sensing a change in the normal swing of things, Finnegan and his cronies leap on him, fists and feet slamming into all the soft places on his body while the sad frustration in George’s eyes batters at the weaknesses in Jim’s soul. Curling up into a ball on the dusty asphalt, Jim does his best to hold on and not succumb to the memories (guards and whips and kids screaming while Kevin calls his name over and over), until the pain of it all is too much to handle and he topples over into unconsciousness.  
  
He wakes up in a hospital bed, his mom clutching his hand while a monitor beeps annoyingly over his shoulder. There’s a split second of panic before all of this registers, but one softly muttered, “dammit, Jim,” and a flash of concerned blue eyes, crinkled at the edges with something other than mirth quiets his nerves enough for him to notice Winona sitting red-eyed at his side. George doesn’t say anything else the entire time Jim’s in the hospital, despite the doctor coming and going and Winona’s fluttering admonishments to be careful, but Jim’s eyes stay locked on him through it all, trying to find some hint of disfavor in those familiar blue eyes.  
  
He refuses to wonder why he’s almost disappointed when he doesn’t find it.  
  
+  
  
He’s too young, too inexperienced to appreciate the taste of the alcohol as he takes a hearty swallow, but the burn down his throat is heartening, something akin to the rush of adrenaline he gets from fights, without the pain of bruises. For that reason alone he downs the drink, managing to mute the grimace the action evokes, though the bartender rolls his eyes and sighs as he sets out another before leaving him alone — they both know he’s too young to be in here, but the bartender won’t ask and Jim’ll never tell.  
  
Sipping carefully this time, lips slightly twisted at the flavor, Jim glances over his shoulder, surveying the bar. It’s a little place, busy mainly on the weekends, popular with the crews that work at the shipyard and Jim’s pleased to notice he doesn’t recognize a single patron — Riverside’s a small town, but the shipyard tends to keep to itself. Blinking sluggishly, Jim realizes he’s staring blankly at the door, eyes slightly crossed. He glances down at his drink then over at the bartender, muzzily realizing that he won’t be given another and he really doesn’t need it. Shrugging, he finishes the last few swallows; he’s achieved his purpose and there’s a woman in Starfleet grays staring at him from across the room, a question he doesn’t want to answer hidden in her eyes.  
  
Half-falling, half-deliberate, he climbs down off the barstool, legs not quite long enough to allow him to gracefully (or in feigned soberness) step off the stool. He makes his way carefully toward the exit, stumbling slightly as he hears the news report playing on the vidscreen in the corner segue into a retelling of the Kelvin tragedy. Eyes squeezed tightly closed, nausea rising in the back of his throat, he shoves past the people trying to enter the bar and runs out into the night, shivering in the chilly air.  
  
“Jim,” he hears George say, something ineffably tender in the mellow timbre of his voice, and he doesn’t want to hear it, doesn’t want to be placated. Today of all days, if he’s going to be left alone anyway (for the first time since...coming back), he just wants the solitude. A chance to think, or not think, to forget as much as possible. He sets off in a wobbly jog, knees threatening to give way with every step, eyes burning with tears he refuses to shed. “Jim!”  
  
“Go ‘way!” Jim shouts back, voice cracking. “Leave me ‘lone!” And it’s almost a sob, but he chokes it back. George flickers beside him, not jogging but still keeping pace somehow, appearing more ethereal than he ever has under the sickly light of the waning moon.  
  
“Jim. Jim, wait— God, Jimmy!” he exclaims as Jim’s legs finally give out on him, dumping him in a heap on the edge of the asphalt. His knees ache from the impact, one hand scraped raw and the other wrist throbbing from landing awkwardly, and he can’t stop the sob this time, the alcohol he’d drunk decimating his control and laying him bare. Tears cut through the dirt on his face and he feels all of eight again, lonely and subjected to the attentions of a mildly abusive stepfather, not sixteen and the survivor of unspeakable horrors.  
  
He curls over on his side, the asphalt cold through his clothes, and cries himself sick, the only time he’s let himself shed a tear for his poor kids. George settles cross-legged in front of him, a bittersweet, reassuring presence, murmuring nonsense until Jim’s quieted to aching stillness, the occasional shuddering breath the only sign of his breakdown. Gradually, as a winter breeze sighs through the roadside grasses, Jim rolls onto his back to stare up at the glitter of stars peeking through the thin cloud cover.  
  
“I wish I didn’t know you,” he sighs into the Iowan night.  
  
George lays his hand over Jim’s sternum and abruptly disappears, leaving Jim to the stars and empty fields, a headache digging in at the base of his skull as one last tear trails down to drip hollowly into his ear.  
  
+  
  
“Rent’s due at the end of the month. No pets. No roommates unless they pay rent, too. No loud parties or I call the police. You put a hole in the wall, you fill it before you leave. I am not a janitorial service, a handyman, a locksmith, a cook, or a nursemaid. You will have a day’s grace in which to get me the rent — the second of the month, I kick you out. Am I clear?”  
  
Jim raises an eyebrow, blinking bemusedly at the diminutive woman standing in front of him. Arms crossed over her chest, hair pulled into a tight French braid, feet solidly planted shoulder-width apart, she appears every inch the retired Starfleet officer. He resists the urge to salute sarcastically, figuring it wouldn’t be appreciated, and nods his understanding, biting his cheek to keep a smirk from twisting his mouth. Her eyes narrow, as if she can read his irreverent thoughts, but she pivots sharply on one heel and marches off down the hall, steps ringing in the empty spaces and down the stairwell. Jim rolls his eyes, hefts his duffle back up on his shoulder, and opens the door to his new apartment.  
  
It isn’t much to look at, just a small kitchenette, living room and bedroom, with a tiny bathroom tucked into the miniscule hallway between the living and bed rooms. He dumps his bag in the middle of the space, the dull thud resounding off the bare walls, and stares around, trying to figure out what to do next. Without stopping to think about it, he turns to speak over his shoulder.  
  
“Home sweet h—” he mutters, a sardonic smirk tugging at his mouth, before biting off the end of the phrase. “Huh,” he sighs and his shoulders slump. Even after two years, he’s not used to George not being there.  
  
Had he his druthers, he’d have kept away from Rosalind Maddox’s little apartment building, not that he really has much of a choice when it comes to low-rent accommodations in and around Riverside. But retired Lt. Cmdr Maddox’s building is the only one that also came fully furnished, a bonus since Jim has only his duffle bag and the clothes on his back to his name. Though he’d have rather stayed away from such a strong reminder of Starfleet and all that it meant to him, the rent is good and the inclusion of a mattress on the narrow bedframe tucked into the little bedroom keeps Jim from having to sleep on the cold floor.  
  
Sighing, he scrubs a hand through his hair, grateful he’d gotten a haircut just last week, making it one less thing he’d have to worry about, for a little while at least. If he’d known his mom was planning on kicking him out, he would have made sure to be prepared, actually taking that job at the mechanic’s and stocking up on some supplies. He refuses to contemplate how empty the cabinets behind him are right now — he’s not broken down since his mom’s declaration, but if there’s anything bound to send him into a panic attack, it’s an impending lack of food.  
  
He squares his shoulders and drags his bag into the bedroom, tossing it in the corner after digging out a book. He throws himself down on the bed, planning to go back to the mechanic’s tomorrow and accept the job offer, and flips open the book, tracing a finger over the holopic he’d tucked in the middle as he reads the words on the opposite page. He’d memorized them years ago but they still bring him comfort in some way, especially after Tarsus. He could use some reassurance now, eighteen, unemployed, and broke, in an empty apartment he’s been granted on good faith and trust in his last name.  
  
 _“All that is gold does not glitter,  
Not all those who wander are lost;  
The old that is strong does not wither,  
Deep roots are not reached by the frost.”_  
  
As he falls asleep, he thinks he sees George standing in the corner of the room, blue eyes shadowed by the night creeping in through the window, but he passes it off as a dream, heart clenching as he misses his dad.  
  
+  
  
The girl in his arms — Jessica? Jeanette? Jorja? — giggles as they crash through the door and into his apartment, landing awkwardly against the rickety table set in the middle of the room. He smiles back and kisses her again, more teeth than anything, tugging on her bottom lip until she moans and arches against him, her skirt riding up as she hooks a leg over his hip. Alcohol is buzzing nicely through his veins, but he’s got enough presence of mind to realize that the table can’t take their weight, so he hauls her — Jennifer? Janna? — up into his arms again and carries her into his bedroom. Her stilettos dig into the small of his back and she curls her fingers into his shoulders as she rubs herself against him, a wicked smile on her face. The friction is driving him crazy and she laughs breathlessly at the way his eyelids flicker in reaction to the sensory onslaught. He retaliates by mouthing at her breast through the filmy material of her blouse, fingers working to open his zipper as her breathy moans sound encouragement in his ear.  
  
They fall asleep later in a tangled mess of sweaty limbs and half-doffed clothing, his head on her stomach and feet hanging off the end of the bed. He wakes to warm lips and steady suction, back arching and toes curling in ecstasy before he’s even fully awake. The girl — Janis? J- uh, J... Janiera! — crawls back up the bed with a satisfied glow in her amethyst eyes, cool, golden-velvet skin rubbing against his as she settles against his side. They kiss with lazy abandon until his comm starts to buzz, indicating he has a half-hour to get to work. He walks her down to the street, brushing one last kiss across her mouth before waving good-bye, the morning sun warm on his bare shoulders despite the wintry chill in the air.  
  
As he rushes through a shower and bolts a protein bar before running out the door to hop in his motorcycle, he completely forgets he’s a year older today, twenty-one instead of twenty, though it doesn’t take him long to see a news feed flashing his dad’s face and remember. He buries himself in the engine he’s taking apart and tries to forget again, not noticing George watching from the corner, where the vidscreen has mysteriously shorted out.  
  
+  
  
“You can whistle really loud, you know that?”  
  
The man in Starfleet grays cocks his head at Jim’s slurred response, but it’s the figure hovering blurrily behind him that Jim’s eyes lock on to. He blinks once and groans as the table tilts, toppling him to the floor, where he gratefully releases his tenuous hold on consciousness and blanks out, George’s startled expression following him down.  
  
+  
  
He’s not sure how long he’s sat here, staring up at the unwieldy, somehow graceful hulk of the ship currently being built at the shipyard. Long enough for the dew to settle on his jacket and run off the cuffs and folds in chilly rivulets, dripping dark spots on his jeans. Long enough to feel the tips of his nose and ears turn pink in the crisp morning air. Long enough for the shape of the ship to indelibly imprint itself on his mind, overlain by his knowledge of Starfleet schematics and engineering to form a clean, strikingly stunning impression shadowing his thoughts of the future. Without even thinking about it, he sighs, drags a hand through his hair, and tilts his head back to stare at the fading stars, keeping his eyes on them as he asks his question.  
  
“Why’d you choose to go?”  
  
There’s silence behind him and Jim calls himself nine kinds of fool for hoping again, shoulders slumped as he hangs his head. Obviously, seeing George standing behind Chris Pike was a fluke, a hallucination caused by his beating and the alcohol he’d consumed. He’s not really seen his dad since his sixteenth birthday, the first time he’d gotten drunk and the only time he’d ever voiced the bitter wish to have never seen him, but he’s still not used to being so totally alone, even after six years. He sighs harshly and moves to kick the bike back to life, hands tight on the handlebars.  
  
“Mostly it was my dad.” The bike wobbles unsteadily as Jim nearly jumps out of his skin, electric tingles of adrenaline prickling under his skin as he whips around to stare hungrily at George. He looks exactly the same as he always has, blue eyes warmly crinkled as he watches Jim fondly, completely unruffled and at ease. He turns to look up at the half-finished ship, Jim’s gaze following as though tethered. “He served his time up in the black, retiring just before I graduated from high school, and I was always interested in the stories he had to tell. But, it was also more than that.” George’s eyes are on Jim again, but he’s too captivated by the dull glint of fading starlight on the occasional panel of aluminum-alloy stretched across the ship’s girders. “Something about it just called to me. There was never any chance I wouldn’t go.” George shrugs and Jim finally turns away from the ship to look at his father.  
  
“I...I’ve never thought about it, not really.”  
  
“Funny,” George’s smile is fond, indulgent as he steps close and lays a careful hand on Jim’s shoulder, “I’ve always thought you’d go.”  
  
+

  
“Hey, kid, you got a package,” Bones tells him before lobbing said package at his head. Jim catches it before it breaks his nose, glaring halfheartedly in McCoy’s general direction as he slides a thumb under the edge of the paper.  
  
Inside the box is the copy of _The Lord of the Rings_ , the toy car he’d long ago liberated from Sam’s possession, a stack of t-shirts, and a pair of worn, holey blue jeans — the only personal possessions he’d left in his apartment in Riverside. A slip of paper flutters to his lap as he lifts the book out of the box and he picks it up to find Rosalind Maddox’s tidy scrawl haphazardly arching across the paper.  
  
 _Here’s the stuff you left. Good luck at the Academy — I always knew you had it in you. Just remember to watch out for Admiral Barrister — she’s always had a sixth sense for pranksters.  
  
P.S. You still owe me the last month’s rent._  
  
Jim snorts at the postscript and drops the note on the bed next to him, deliberately piling clothes on top of it, and flips open the book. He thumbs through the pages until he’s at the beginning of _The Two Towers_ , closing the book around his fingers as he glances over at McCoy.  
  
“Was there something you wanted?” he asks, brow quirked as he realizes the other man had come over completely unannounced and without apparent reason, a first in their tentative new friendship despite Jim doing so frequently.  
  
McCoy shrugs, still staring at whatever show he’d found on the vidscreen. “Nah. There’s some sorta party bein’ held three rooms down from mine. Couldn’t hear myself think, the music was so loud.” He throws a glance over at Jim, eyes flicking down to the book in his hands before swinging back to the show. “Didn’t even have any decent booze to make up for the noise.”  
  
“Well, mi casa es su casa, Bones,” Jim mutters, shaking his head as he opens the book and starts reading.  
  
“Surprised you don’t want me to get you in to that party, Jim,” Bones comments, not even challenging the use of the nickname — another first.  
  
“Eh, not tonight, honey. I have a headache.” Jim grins at McCoy’s expression and lowers one eyelid in a lascivious wink, chuckling darkly when a vivid blush suffuses McCoy’s face, contrasting nicely with his dark hair and hazel eyes.  
  
From his seat on the empty bed in the corner, George snorts a laugh, pinching the bridge of his nose. Jim glances over at him without turning his head, pleased to see him there though it’s awkward with someone else in the room.  
  
“God, I thought I was done with all of this,” George mutters, shaking his head in rueful amusement. Jim bites the corner of his lip to quell a smirk and turns a page, the soft, slightly dog-eared texture of the paper a welcome change from the cool glass of a PADD.  
  
“You should know better than to expect the expected around me,” Jim replies, voice low, watching Bones over the top of his book. The doctor’s attention stays on the vidscreen.  
  
George snorts again. “Don’t I know it.”  
  
“Where’s your roommate?” Bones asks eventually. Jim glances up and frowns vaguely for a second, trying to remember.  
  
“Uh, somewhere, I dunno. Should be back soon, though.”  
  
Sure enough, the words have scarcely left Jim’s mouth when the door to their room whisks open and Gary Mitchell strides in, an unlabeled bottle of clear liquor under one arm and a couple pizzas in the other hand.  
  
“Evening, gentlemen,” Gary greets cheerily, dropping the pizza boxes on the desk and heading to the kitchenette to fish out three glasses. “There’s a kickass party over in the Medical dorms, bad music but great company,” he prattles on, pouring his mysterious beverage into the glasses and digging out a slice of pizza for himself. “I knew you were being a good boy this evening, Jimmy, so I took it upon myself to provide food and entertainment and completely ruin those plans. Cheers!” He grins unrepentantly, taking his glass and flopping down on his suddenly vacant bed.  
  
Bones rolls his eyes and Jim laughs at Gary’s antics, but they both haul themselves over to the desk to grab a slice of pizza and one of the glasses of liquor. Jim wonders for a half-second where George disappeared to but the alcohol has a potent kick, blurring his vision after the first tentative sip, and he quickly forgets. By the time he’s finished the glass and helped demolish a third of the pizza, things are pleasantly muzzy, a warm glow settled in his gut as Bones and Gary engage in a brief battle over the last slice of pizza. He laughs uproariously with Bones when Gary falls face-first off his bunk, leaning heavily against Bones’ shoulder.  
  
“Man, I haven’t had this much fun in years,” falls out of Jim’s mouth, drawing a raised eyebrow from Bones and an incredulous look from Gary.  
  
“What about last weekend with those Andorian triplets?” Gary questions, flat on his back on the floor with his feet propped on Jim’s bed.  
  
“Or last month at that party with the Engineerin’ cadets?” Bones mentions, tipping his glass in Jim’s direction, accent thicker, the rough edges of his words catching pleasantly along Jim’s mind. Jim shrugs and takes another swig straight from the bottle, sweet licorice-fire searing his throat.  
  
“Tha’ was fun, but not like this. Thississ what I al’ays figgered high school’d be like.” He frowns, tongue tripping stupidly over the sentiments he’s not sure he really wants to reveal.  
  
“Jim, you need to stop with that stuff. Bramese Sweet-fire’ll knock you on your ass faster than the ERT can get here,” George tells him, appearing suddenly by the bed, urgency painted in stark lines across his face. Jim stares at him, mind foggy, and tries to process what he’s saying.  
  
“S’just alcohol, George,” Jim mutters in reply, eyes crossing as he tries to focus on George’s face. He licks his lips and frowns, wondering when they went numb. His arms, too, he realizes, panic distantly flaring along his nerves as he tries and fails to peel himself off Bones’ shoulder.  
  
“Jim? Kid?” Bones asks, turning to look at Jim, concern starting to draw his eyebrows together when Jim doesn’t respond. “Jim,” he says again, jostling Jim with his shoulder before turning more fully to pull Jim up straighter. Jim’s eyelids drop to half-mast at the shift in position, his neck loose and weak as his head flops back to lean against the wall next to his bed. “Mitchell, what is this shit?” he asks urgently, taking the half-empty bottle out of Jim’s hand.  
  
“Sweet-fire, why, doc?”  
  
“Shit!” Bones’ voice is suddenly far too sober and Jim distantly feels a smile touch his face at the concern. He bats a hand in Bones’ direction, landing it awkwardly on the doctor’s forearm as Bones starts firing off orders.  
  
“Hand me my bag over there,” he barks and Gary jumps up and dives for the messenger bag Bones left by the couch, slinging it across the room to get it there faster.  
  
“Stay awake, Jimmy,” George says urgently to Jim’s right, hands fluttering uselessly around Jim’s face, touching his shoulder and forehead in an attempt to keep Jim’s attention.  
  
“C’mon, Jim, stay with me,” Bones calls, loading a hypospray and jabbing it at Jim’s neck. Jim flinches and tries to jerk away, muttering blearily as he lists sideways, eyes falling shut as he loses his battle with consciousness.  
  
“Dad,” he moans just before his head hits the bed.  
  
“Goddammit, Jim,” greets him in stereo when he opens his eyes next. He blinks dazedly at the ceiling, eyebrows drawn into a frown, realizing almost immediately that he’s not in his own bed. He swings his gaze down to look at Bones, cataloguing his ruffled appearance with an absentminded sort of intensity as Bones launches into an ear-blistering tirade. George just stares tiredly down at him from the other side of the bed.  
  
“Why’n _hell_ would you go an’ drink half a bottle of Bramese Sweet-fire, Jim? D’you know what that stuff’ll do to you? For Bramans it’s like water but for a human, enough of it’ll confuse the nervous system. You were halfway into respiratory arrest because your fool brain didn’t know up from down, let alone its natural rhythms. God damn Gary Mitchell and his fuckin’ party favors. Three other cadets’re here too because some stupid surgeon in training forgot to check species compatibilities for the foods at that damn party. Someone oughta—”  
  
“Bones. Bones. _Bones!_ ” Jim calls, finally catching his attention. “It’s fine, ‘snot like I died or anything.” He stops when Bones’ expression shifts into a nasty glare, arms crossed over his chest as though resisting the urge to throw his tricorder across the room — or at Jim.  
  
“It was too damn close, Kirk,” he bites out, turning on one heel in a pivot that’d make a drill sergeant cry with pride, and somehow manages to slam out of the room while leaving the door to the hall wide open.  
  
Jim stares bemusedly after him until George clears his throat. “He’s right, you know. You’d’ve died if he hadn’t been in the room with you.” Jim scoffs and looks away, inexplicably frustrated and confused. He keeps thinking about how dark and cold Bones’ eyes had gone.  
  
“Yeah, well, I didn’t,” Jim mutters and shifts over onto his side. “You should’ve said something sooner, if you were so worried.”  
  
“Jim—”  
  
“Sorry, cadet, but Dr. McCoy wants to make sure you get a full night’s sleep before he releases you.” The nurse is chipper and all business as she presses a hypo against Jim’s neck, not even giving him a chance to respond. The sedative is fast-acting but he still manages to keep his eyes open long enough to see her make a note on her PADD, mouth set in a grim line as she sweeps back out of the room.  
  
This does not bode well.  
  
+  
  
The next day, when Jim hacks into his medical records, he finds a note jammed into the margins. Bringing it up on the screen, he feels something inside him sink and sweat break out on the back of his neck.  
  
 _Possible allergic reaction to treatment resulting from overconsumption of Bramese Sweet-fire. Hallucinations noted prior to completion of treatment. Full allergen panel recommended. Suggest possibility of psychiatric treatment if hallucinations persist/reoccur._  
  
“We’re gonna have to be a lot more careful here,” Jim mutters to himself.  
  
“I thought that went without saying,” George replies and Jim jumps in shock. Glaring over his shoulder, he closes out the file and pulls up his Xenobio homework.  
  
“Whatever.”  
  
+  
  
Obfuscation is a lot more difficult with Bones than it ever was with any of the doctors on the _Concord_. For one, Bones seems genuinely concerned about Jim, watching him carefully when he thinks Jim isn’t looking and shadowing him to parties and bars, monitoring what he does and doesn’t drink or eat (Jim allows this for the first week, then calmly and rationally tells him that he’s a big boy and well able to take care of himself, thankyouverymuch). For another, Bones just seems to barge straight through any of the usual walls Jim constructs to keep people from getting too close. He would be upset about it, but Bones has a wicked sense of humor perfectly in sync with Jim’s and his dry comments and all-encompassing sarcasm are compelling enough to keep Jim constantly intrigued, always wanting to know what else will receive the sharp edge of McCoy’s tongue.  
  
Makes him wonder what else his tongue can do.  
  
Jim blinks and scoffs to himself, taking a large pull off his beer and surveying the crowd at the bar. There’re a couple of prospects tonight — a tall, thin woman in spindly heels swaying gently to the music, a shorter, pleasantly curvy brunette still in her reds and nursing a White Russian, and, ooh, the brawny blond guy, all baseball-muscles and apple-pie charm, talking to the bartender. Not necessarily something new, but definitely a change from the usual. Smirking, Jim makes his choice and downs the last of his beer, belching lightly as he plunks the bottle back on the table.  
  
“Well, Bones, don’t wait up for me,” he says, clapping a hand on Bones’ shoulder and sidestepping his chair, winding carefully through the people milling around on the dance floor until he’s standing just behind and to the left of Mr. All-American.  
  
“I am not sure I would do that, were I you,” a pretty Orion perched on a barstool murmurs, dipping her finger into her drink as she watches Jim through her eyelashes.  
  
“Might wanna listen to her, Jim,” George advises from the other side of the bar. He’s staring speculatively at Jim’s flavor of the evening.  
  
“Why?” Jim asks the both of them, though the Orion thinks he’s talking straight to her.  
  
“Because, while blond hair and pretty blue eyes may be his thing, yours come in entirely the wrong packaging.” Jim frowns, then disregards her assessment, a blinding smile sliding across his face.  
  
“We’ll see about that.”  
  
“Goddammit,” George gripes and starts making his way through the bar, over to where Bones is sitting. Jim frowns after him, watching his progress a little too obviously, then shakes his head and turns to the evening’s prey.  
  
“Hi, there.”  
  
When the guy’s fist lands against his cheekbone five minutes later, he decides that, really, he’s not all that surprised, despite his comments to the Orion chick. He thinks about it to himself as he retaliates, throwing Mr. All-American across the room, knocking over a table or two and bringing at least two other people into the fight — All-American’s roommate and Denebian girlfriend, who has a surprisingly accurate right-hook. Jim smiles and winks suggestively at the girl, laughing aloud at her enraged shriek before a beer bottle over the top of his head fells him. He lies there in a daze, the fight continuing around him, until two pairs of hand — one strong and firm, another slender and cool against his face and neck — drag him out of the bar while three voices loudly berate him.  
  
“Jim, _when_ will you stop this nonsense?” George asks in exasperation as Bones and the Orion prop him up against the bar’s front wall.  
  
“God _dammit_ , Jim, I swear, do you _want_ a permanent dent in the back of your head? ‘Cause, I promise you, you’re heading down that road and it won’t be from drunk SOs in seedy bars,” Bones grumbles while the girl tells him, in a melodic voice, “I tried to warn you, do not blame me because you refused to heed my warnings.”  
  
Jim rolls his eyes, splaying the fingers of both hands against the ground to keep from falling over as the world spins, and heaves a put-upon sigh. “You never let it go, do you?” he snaps, staring over Bones’ head at George. “Every time, you gotta stick your nose where it isn’t wanted!” He doesn’t notice how Bones’ eyes narrow or the way the Orion’s lips thin in annoyance.  
  
George crosses his arms and stares down at his son, eyebrow raised in eerie reminiscence of Bones’ typical ‘really-now-Jim’ expression. “We played this game once and I let you push me away for seven years. We’re not playing it again. Especially not here.” His eyes fall pointedly to rest on top of Bones’ head, where the doctor is methodically checking Jim’s limbs, ensuring there are no injuries other than the occasional bruise.  
  
Jim flushes at the remonstrance and falls silent, staring at Bones’ hands as he turns his attention to the goose-egg on the back of Jim’s head.  
  
“How many fingers am I holding up, Jim?” he asks, hazel eyes dark and strangely wary in the light from the bar.  
  
“Three,” Jim answers, rolling his eyes again and looking away.  
  
“Wanna tell me who you were talking to, Jimmy?” Bones’ voice is light as his fingers card through Jim’s hair, checking for blood in the blond strands.  
  
“He was not talking to us?” the Orion girl questions curiously, red hair falling over her shoulder as she studies Bones’ face.  
  
“Not now, sweetheart,” Bones dismisses the question, deliberately catching Jim’s gaze. “Jim?”  
  
“No one, Bones.” He’s tired and he has a headache. He’s _done_ with this, with doctors, even if Bones’ is something of a friend (who’s he kidding, Bones is the closest thing he’s had to a best friend since Sam left). “No one.”  
  
“Okay, Jim.” And Bones’ voice is placating as he hauls Jim to his feet and wraps one lax arm over his shoulders. “Let’s just get back to campus.”  
  
He doesn’t see George as they make their way to Bones’ dorm and he thinks that may be a good thing, what with the alcohol he’s consumed and the mild concussion Bones diagnoses him with when he’s settled on the doctor’s bed loosening his tongue and lowering his inhibitions. He drifts to sleep listening to the sound of Bones breathing next to him on the bed, watching George flicker strangely in the moonlight spilling through the window over Bones’ desk.  
  
+  
  
“Jim, do you often see people that aren’t there?” Bones asks out of the blue one day while they’re cramming for finals. Jim blinks at him in confusion for a second, mind still focused on the tactical studies of the battles of the first Terran World War, before the penny drops.  
  
“No,” he scoffs, hand coming up to rub the back of his neck as he tries not to let his eyes dart over to where George is perched on a nearby armchair. The library is mostly empty at this time of day and there’s no way he could pass off the gesture without further triggering Bones’ suspicions. “Why do you ask?”  
  
“’Cause he’s not stupid, Jim,” George quips. Jim’s expression almost shifts into a scowl, but he manages to keep a straight face.  
  
“Somethin’ I saw in your file a while ago,” Bones answers nonchalantly, tapping at his PADD, gaze very firmly fixed on his work, though his shoulders are tense. “And, last weekend.”  
  
Jim swallows and sneaks a look at George, who’s smirking at his son, pulling faces at the back of Bones’ head. “I had a concussion, Bones.”  
  
“Uh-huh.”  
  
There’s silence after that, aside from the sound of Bones’ stylus against the screen of his PADD. Jim tries to go back to studying but quickly realizes his focus is shot. George wanders over and peeks at the PADD over Jim’s shoulder, reading off key points and asking questions until Jim starts writing out his answers, easily falling back into one of his habits from grade school.  
  
“Jim, you would tell me if there were something wrong, right?” Bones asks. Neither looks up from their work, though Jim, out of the corner of his eye, can see George looking back and forth from him to Bones, an odd quirk of expression tilting his mouth.  
  
“Sure, Bones.” And nothing’s _wrong_ , so there’s nothing to tell Bones. Jim feels lighter at the out Bones has unintentionally given him.  
  
+  
  
“’Overwhelm and devastate’ was whose personal creed?” George asks. Jim answers without really even thinking about it.  
  
“Terran Colonel Phillip Green.”  
  
“What was the turning point for the Battle of Helm’s Deep?”  
  
“The—” Jim stops, frowning. Hard as he tries, he can’t come up with an answer. Shoot, he can’t even remember when or where the Battle of Helm’s Deep occurred. Looking up, he sees a quirky grin on George’s face and finally realizes what his dad is referencing. “Gandalf’s return with the Rohirrim diverted to the Fords of Isen and a forest of Huorns.” He crosses his arms and glares at George. “That’s not fair.”  
  
“’sperfectly fair,” George counters. “You’ve been studying for hours. Why not take a break?”  
  
“’Cause the exam is Monday!”  
  
“And you know all of this.” George’s expression softens. “What’s really wrong, Jim?”  
  
“Nothing.” He gets up and starts stacking PADDs, conceding to George’s assertion that he really doesn’t need to study anymore.  
  
“It’s Friday. Don’t you normally go to Sullivan’s with McCoy?”  
  
“It’s not like he’s my boyfriend or anything,” Jim snaps, dropping the PADDs with a clatter on the desk. He braces his palms on the smooth desktop and hangs his head, exhaling a bone-deep sigh.  
  
“Jim?”  
  
“He’s been researching different mental illnesses and digging in my medical file.” Jim feels inexplicably tired as he lifts his head to stare at George, leaning against Gary’s pillows where he’d been helping Jim study. “He’s a doctor. He’s determined there’s something wrong with me and he needs to fix it.”  
  
“Jim—” George crosses the room in the blink of an eye, standing eye to eye with his son to reach out a hand and lay it reassuringly on his shoulder. “There’s nothing wrong with you. I’m just...not done here yet.” He smiles, eyes crinkling around melancholy sky-blue. “I’ve tried to leave, but...” He trails off and shrugs. “Well, it didn’t work.”  
  
Jim thinks about how George’d disappeared after Kevin had died, how Kevin’d followed him around until Jim had a chance to talk to Ms. Riley. How, just because Jim had made a drunken wish on his sixteenth birthday, he didn’t see George for seven years, except in brief flashes. He thinks about the way his mom reacted every time he’d mention George, the way Finnegan and a dozen other people in Riverside thought of him, the way the doctors on the _Concord_ had fussed and fluttered over his conversations with Kevin — all until Jim had realized that everything was just easier for everyone if he kept George a secret. He thinks about how he was never _really_ lonely as a child, though he and Frank never seemed to warm to each other, Winona escaped to space as soon as possible, and Sam ran away.  
  
He shrugs off George’s hand and grabs his jacket, stuffing his hands in the sleeves and cramming his hands in the pockets. “I’m gonna see if Gaila’s busy.” He turns to the door, snatching up his comm as he goes because Bones’ll have his head if something happens and he can’t call for help.  
  
He stops just on the other side of the door, the sensors chiming at their inability to close the door behind him due to his proximity. George watches him with solemn eyes.  
  
“Don’t wait up for me.”  
  
+  
  
His ears ringing, he sits in the empty mock-bridge, hands numb and breath fast while his head spins.  
  
“Jim,” George says and Jim’s eyes pinch shut, face twisting as he flinches away from the sound of his father’s voice.  
  
It was over so quickly; he’d hardly had a chance to think, even for a second, commands pouring out of his mouth instinctively as chaos took rein around him. He wonders if this was anything like what George experienced, if the recovered logs were actually used in fabricating the test. The thought leaves him feeling sick, headache pounding at his temples as he finally hauls himself out of the captain’s chair and through the door.  
  
Bones is leaning against the wall outside the sim, arms crossed and head down, bangs covering his eyes. Jim’s shoulders relax when he sees him, some of the residual tension and adrenaline from the test draining out of his body. He leans against the wall next to his friend and adopts the same position, sneaking little glances at the doctor out of the corner of his eye. Finally, Bones sighs, a weary sound that somehow expresses all of the exhaustion _Jim_ feels, and pulls himself out of his slouch, waiting until Jim does the same to turn and head down the hallway. Jim trails after curiously.  
  
Bones doesn’t say anything until they’re safely seated at Sullivan’s, drinks in hand.  
  
“It’s a damn fool test, if y’ask me,” he starts and Jim cuts a sideways glance in his direction, surprised at Bones actively trying to console and comfort him — he’s not seen this side of his friend before. “’snot right, teaching kids it’s okay to give up, ‘specially not in such a dramatic fashion.” He tosses back the last of his whiskey and Jim stifles a grin around the mouth of his beer bottle as Bones’ scowls at the glass like it’s offended him.  
  
“I kept thinking about my dad,” Jim freely admits. George walks out of the crowd building in the center of the bar and comes to stand next to their table. Jim doesn’t look up at him, mostly because Bones is studying his face, but partly because of how easily the Klingons in the simulation defeated him. He shrugs in nonchalance he doesn’t feel. “Wondering what it was like for him.”  
  
“I don’t want you to know what it was like, Jim. That’s my burden to bear, not yours. It’s just a test.” Jim tries not to flinch again when George reaches out to put a hand on his shoulder; judging by the way Bones’ eyes narrow just the slightest, he figures he didn’t quite succeed.  
  
“Well,” Bones says, stretching his back and waving for another round, “it’s just a test and you did the best you could, right? So it’s done now. You can move on to the next big challenge.”  
  
Jim feels a spark of defiance flare hot in his chest at the thought of just rolling over and accepting his defeat. “Oh, no, Bones.” The look on his face is startled and slightly wary, especially as Jim bares his teeth in a wolfish grin. “This _is_ the next big challenge.”  
  
George shakes his head with a mild smile and Bones rolls his eyes in exasperation, both knowing him too well to think this’ll be anything good.  
  
+  
  
The first thing he does is submit a request for access to the data and logs recovered from the _Kelvin_ ’s shuttles and remains. The next is to search through the Academy library for a copy of Captain Pike’s dissertation. He figures studying the information from an actual situation like the _Kobayashi Maru_ will help him better understand the test itself. That he has a personal tie to it has no bearing on the matter — or so he tells himself.  
  
It takes a month for his requests to be processed and filled, during which he reads and rereads every tactical manual he can get his hands on, often staying up through the night. He’s never had something consume his attention quite like the _Maru_ and he enjoys the challenge, enjoys seeking out information and absorbing it, quizzing George whenever he gets the chance, though they stay well clear of the _Kelvin_. His scores in every command-based class skyrocket, placing him almost at the head of his entire class and certainly at the top of the command track students. He’s not made any inquiries into retaking the test yet, but he can tell by the looks in his instructors’ eyes they know he’s up to something out of the ordinary.  
  
His behavior drives Bones insane, which in turn drives Jim insane, which amuses George to no end. After a week with little to no sleep, Bones appears one night outside Jim’s dorm room, a sly smile on his face and a glint in his eye that makes Jim wary. Even Gary makes some hasty excuse and practically bolts for the door, sniggering at Jim behind Bones’ back as he goes. Dropping back on his bed and picking up his PADD, Jim doesn’t see the hypospray coming.  
  
When he wakes fourteen hours later to the smell of food and George’s laughter, he’s not quite sure whether to be mad or grateful. He settles on hungry and shooting nasty looks at Bones.  
  
“You can quit giving me the stink-eye, you infant,” Bones comments mildly, sipping a cup of coffee as he watches Jim devour the tray of food with fervor not usually applied to the Mess hall’s delicacies. “Gary told me—”  
  
“Dirty snitch,” Jim mutters around a mouthful of eggs.  
  
“—that you haven’t been sleeping recently and not eating. Even said you were starting to talk to yourself.” Jim starts at that, staring at his friend, who’s spreading cream cheese onto a bagel for himself. Bones doesn’t look at him, gives no indication that he means anything other than symptoms of sleep deprivation. Swallowing hard, Jim sets his fork down and clears his throat, almost sickened by the amount of food he’s consumed since waking.  
  
“I’ve been busy,” he starts to explain, but Bones cuts him off.  
  
“Dammit, Jim, that’s no excuse! You’re not invincible and you’re not gonna beat that test by runnin’ yourself ragged.” George snickers from somewhere behind Jim as Bones launches in to what seems like it will be one hell of a rant. Jim bites down on the inside of his cheek, sharing his father’s amusement, until Bones’ lecture veers abruptly in a completely unexpected direction.  
  
“I’ve seen your records, Jim. I’m not your personal physician, but I needed to know what allergies you may have and a general history, especially after your stunt with the Sweet-fire and those bar fights you insist on participating in. And I’ve seen the notes stuffed in the back, locked down for medical eyes and the brass only.” A cold shiver traces down Jim’s back and he feels frozen in his chair, eyes fixed on Bones as the man deliberately doesn’t slam his coffee cup down onto the table and moves to sit closer to Jim.  
  
“Jim?” George asks, hand on his shoulder and voice concerned.  
  
“That’s none of your business,” Jim hears himself say, sounding strange to his own ears.  
  
“You damn well bet it’s my business,” Bones sounds affronted, but the hand he lays on Jim’s shoulder — coincidentally right on top of/through George’s hand — is compassionate and almost tender. “Not as your doctor — ‘cause I’m not, ‘cept when you provoke someone bigger than you into tryin’ to break your face — but as your friend. There’s gotta be something I can do to help, even if it’s just makin’ sure you _take care_ of yourself.”  
  
“I—”  
  
“Jim,” he can’t stop himself turning to look at George, standing in the shower of light pouring through the window, eyes sadder than he’s seen them since leaving the farmhouse in Riverside, “maybe it’s time you tell someone about Tarsus, someone still alive.” He frowns and George’s eyes flick to Bones, who’s waiting for Jim to respond. “It’s not a bad thing to let someone in, Jim, not when they really care.”  
  
“Jim?” Bones asks softly, a plea in his voice though Jim is sure Bones won’t make him do anything he doesn’t need to.  
  
George smiles sadly and fades away, leaving Jim to make his choice. So Jim chooses, drawing strength from the warmth of Bones’ hand on his shoulder and the way he never once looks at Jim with pity.  
  
+  
  
“Jim?” Bones calls softly, poking his head around the end of the library stack, his face reflecting hesitance and concern. Jim lifts aching eyes from the PADD lying in his lap as Bones steps out of the shelves and over to Jim’s chair. He blinks blearily at his friend, surprised at the casual clothes Bones is wearing and his sleep-mussed appearance.  
  
“What’s up, Bones?” Jim croaks, frowning at the sound of his own voice.  
  
“Gary commed me, said you hadn’t come back yet?” The way Bones is trying to carefully navigate the situation clues Jim into how wrong things must be — Bones is rarely this cautious with him, even when he’s not at his best. “It’s after three and command-track finals start tomorrow, right?”  
  
Jim nods vaguely, then stops. After _three_? Seeking confirmation, he picks up the PADD in his lap, catching the timestamp in the corner just before his eyes snag on a line of words on the screen.  
  
 _...George Kirk’s heroic actions were not only instrumental in saving the lives of over 800 fleeing members of the dying_ Kelvin _, but also those of his wife and their newborn son..._  
  
He presses his lips together and barely resists hurling the PADD into the stacks, settling instead for tossing it dismissively on the ground. It lands at Bones’ feet and the doctor leans down to pick it up, skimming through the open document and paling considerably as he looks back up at Jim.  
  
“Pike’s dissertation?”  
  
“Yeah.” Jim sighs, scrubbing at his face, not acknowledging, even to himself, the grit of long-dry tearstains on his cheeks. He presses the heels of his hands into his eyes until starbursts of color flare behind his eyelids. Bones is silent after his admission, standing statue-like just inside the otherwise empty study area, the PADD held loosely in his hand. “There was an audio file attached, but I couldn’t bring myself to —” He swallows hard, biting off the sentence when his voice threatens to betray him. He glares fiercely at his hands and doesn’t notice when Bones shakes himself out of his stupor.  
  
“C’mon, kid,” he says roughly, gentle hands firmly bidding him gather his stuff and follow. Jim shivers in the early morning chill as they step out of the warmth of the library, hands clenched tight around his PADDs and shoulders hunched as they cross campus to the Medical dorms.  
  
Wordlessly, Bones hands him a t-shirt and sweatpants and crawls back into bed, leaving enough space for Jim to wedge himself in next to his best friend. As the warm weight of the covers and the solid presence next to him settle over him, Jim feels himself begin to relax, feels the ache in the pit of his stomach and the back of his throat ease a little as sleep starts to dull his thoughts, turning them away from what he’d read. He’s drowsing, floating between sleep and wakefulness and not quite able to let go, when he hears George whisper into the darkness.  
  
“I’m so sorry, Jimmy,” he says and the old nickname doesn’t spark anything rebellious, like it usually does. He imagines he can feel George gently card his fingers through his hair, a thumb rub softly against the frownlines etched into his forehead and the laughlines starting to crinkle the edges of his eyes. “I didn’t want to do it, but I couldn’t do anything else,” George whispers, voice tender and ineffably sad.  
  
“’Sokay, George,” he mutters roughly in response, batting a hand in the direction of his dad’s voice, “I understand.” Because, if nothing else, Starfleet has helped him at least understand some part of why he grew up knowing his dad but never able to touch him. His hand knocks lightly against the nightstand and Bones grunts behind him.  
  
“G’sleep, Jim,” Bones slurs, sliding one warm, heavy arm over Jim’s waist and tugging him deeper into the comforting heat of the bed.  
  
“I understand, George,” Jim mutters one more time and the arm around his waist tightens, dragging him closer to Bones’ body and down into sleep.  
  
+  
  
Bones doesn’t say anything later that morning, but his dark eyes follow Jim closer than they have since the beginning and Jim suspects that his friend may not have been as asleep as Jim’d assumed. George doesn’t say anything either, but Jim is beginning to realize that his dad is starting to think Jim should tell McCoy exactly what’s going on.  
  
Jim’s not sure what to do, so he avoids the matter, instead sending in a request to retake the _Kobayashi Maru_ and focusing on preparing himself for another attempt at beating it.  
  
+  
  
He’s the first one out of the simulation room as the smoke clears, bolting out of the building as soon as he has a chance to get through the door. He passes Medical on his way off campus and briefly entertains the thought of stopping for Bones, dragging the man with him to some secluded corner of San Francisco and holing up for the next few days. He shakes it off, though, and picks up speed, recognizing in himself a need to be alone and wallow for a while. The gate chimes as it acknowledges his comm-code and departure and then he’s free, at least in theory. He jumps on the first transport he comes across and rides it to the end, scenery passing in a blur as he stares blankly out the window.  
  
“Nobody thinks any differently of you for not beating the test,” George says from the seat next to him. Jim rolls his eyes and focuses on the houses sliding by. “Everyone fails it, Jim. It’s just how you handle that knowledge that matters.”  
  
“You saying you failed, when it counted?” Jim fires back, not taking his gaze off the passing scenery. George sighs and Jim grits his teeth, thinking about the test and his latest attempt.  
  
He’d tried everything, from threats of weapons fire to offers of surrender (tinged sour by the revulsion he’d felt at the very suggestion), to negotiations and futile posturing. In the end, he’d ordered all weapons fired and, when the Klingons returned fire and practically decimated his ship, a full-scale evacuation followed by a self-destruct course, saving both the fleeing shuttles and the stranded _Kobayashi Maru_ — exactly the way the _Kelvin_ had gone down. Then he’d escaped as soon as possible, not wanting to hear the speculation sure to surround him after that stunt.  
  
“If it’s worth anything, you aren’t the first to sacrifice your ship like that. In the simulation,” George amends, seeing the glare Jim shoots in his direction. “Every year there’s a small percentage that decide to go down with their ship and, every year, it fails, Jim. That’s the point.”  
  
Jim doesn’t ask how George knows the statistics behind the test. He also doesn’t say anything else until well after he’s gotten off the transport.  
  
The air is cool against his skin but not cold, just brisk and bracing and a welcome distraction from the noise in his head. He walks aimlessly down half-empty streets, ignoring George’s presence behind him, eyes tracking people and stores and never settling for too long in one place. He walks until his brain finally starts to slow down, the clamor and confusion of command decisions winding down into the gentle murmur he’s started noticing recently. And as his head starts to clear, exhaustion begins to set in, dragging at his legs until he fairly collapses on a nearby bench, head hanging heavily between his shoulders as he stares at the ground.  
  
His comm chimes, jolting him out of his contemplation of the concrete beneath his boots. Sighing tiredly, he shifts around to dig the device out of his pocket.  
  
“Dammit, Jim, where the hell are you?” spills out of the speaker before he gets a chance to raise it to his ear. Smirking in wry amusement, he answers Bones’ demand.  
  
“I really dunno, Bones. Hopped a transport and rode it ‘til the end.”  
  
An unintelligible growl on the other end makes Jim’s grin stretch wider, despite how exhausted he suddenly feels. “You know what’s good for you, you get’cher ass back on that transport and back to campus.” Bones sounds well and truly frustrated, but Jim thinks he hears an undercurrent of relief threading through the irascible Southern consonants.  
  
“Ah, will do, Bones. Just, um,” he glances down the street, vaguely surprised to see it empty, both of people and vehicles, “gotta find the stop.”  
  
“Dammit, Jim!” He grins again and snaps the comm shut on Bones’ diatribe, hauling himself to his feet to make his way back to where he thinks he got off the transport.  
  
“All of your decisions were sound,” George murmurs next to him and Jim resolutely doesn’t jump at the unexpected sound of his voice, though goosebumps prickle along his skin — he’s never truly gotten used to how easily George can appear and disappear. “Until you left campus, that is.”  
  
He cuts a look at George out of the corner of his eye. “Even the offer to surrender?”  
  
George shrugs. “Sometimes, that’s the only option available. At least you were willing to acknowledge it.”  
  
Jim sighs. “All right, I get it. It’s about feeling and understanding fear and acting anyway.” George nods and a knot of tension unravels in Jim’s stomach. “’swhat I figured,” he exhales, shoving his hand through his hair.  
  
He turns a corner and sees the transport stop at the end of the block, empty but for a sign announcing travel times. He makes himself jog the distance, though his knees feel rubbery, and the burst of exercise wakes him up some. Watching the revolving sign, he finds he will only have to wait a little bit for the transport to arrive. Settling back on the bench with a sigh, he shoots George a glance through slitted eyelids.  
  
“I’m still gonna beat it,” he vows and George’s shoulders slump but he doesn’t contradict him, acknowledging with a roll of his eyes his belief that Jim will do it.  
  
+  
  
“Jim, have you ever tried talking to anyone about,” Bones hesitates and Jim swings his gaze up from his meal to focus on his friend. Bones looks uncomfortable, ill at ease, and Jim feels a creeping numbness crawl out of the pit of his stomach, stealing his appetite and words. “I mean, there may be something they can do to help you, y’know, deal with stuff.” Bones won’t meet his eyes and George is watching them warily when Jim finally manages to snap out of his shock.  
  
“What stuff?” He can play nonchalant and vaguely perplexed with the best of them.  
  
“Well,” Bones glances over his shoulder and Jim hopes he’ll see something to warrant avoiding the conversation but the cafeteria is mostly empty, just them and another couple of people on the other side of the room, “Tarsus, maybe, or, I dunno, your stepdad.” Jim feels his shoulders relax a little, the nausea in his throat ease off. Then Bones drops the other shoe. “Or your dad’s death.”  
  
“No. There’s nothing wrong. He’s dead — that’s it.” His fingers are cold, but the back of his neck feels flushed. He needs to get out of here. “Look, Bones, I’ve gotta—”  
  
“It’s not it, Jim, and there’s somethin’ going on,” Bones insists, reaching out to snag Jim’s sleeve and keep him at the table. “If there’s a problem, they could discharge you, Jim.”  
  
Jim wrenches his arm out of Bones’ grasp. George’s arm winds around Jim’s chest as Jim leans down to get in Bones’ face.  
  
“Jim, watch it. Come on, now,” George pleads, arm slipping through Jim’s chest and hands ineffectively clenching through Jim’s shoulders as he tries to calm him down.  
  
“There’s nothing wrong with me,” Jim snarls in McCoy’s face, ignoring the wide hazel eyes as they skitter nervously over Jim’s expression. Jim shivers from the strange mix of feelings — fear, anger, betrayal, relief, shock — surging through him, augmented by the not-feel of George’s hands through his body. “It’s none of your business and there’s nothing to fix, _doctor_.” Only the word itself keeps it from being a curse, though the epithet still burns like he wants it to.  
  
“Jim.” Bones’ tone is just shy of begging, hands reaching to placate and calm, but Jim snatches up his tray and PADDs and walks away. “Jim!”  
  
“Fuck off, McCoy,” Jim launches over his shoulder and he hears two indrawn breaths echo through the strange silence filling the cafeteria. He ignores the curious eyes following his progress out the doors and sets off at a jog across campus.  
  
“Jim, he’s just concerned,” George tries to excuse, keeping pace with Jim as he heads for the Astronav building. He’d love to leave the campus for a while, get out of his head and away from Bones, but he’s got a class and, sixteen months away from keeping his promise to Pike to finish a year early, he can’t afford to miss it.  
  
“I don’t care, it’s none of his business,” Jim snaps.  
  
“Maybe you could try explaining to him. I’ll help you,” George offers.  
  
“What, and give him the evidence he needs to lock me away? You heard him, he thinks there’s something wrong with me. He won’t let it go that easily.”  
  
“So how’re you gonna deal with this then? Huh, Jim? Gonna just run away, ignore it and hope it goes away?” George’s voice is hard, his expression thunderous in a way Jim’s never seen before. “You can’t do that, Jim. You can’t just stick your head in the sand and avoid it!” Jim stops short as George steps into his path, not wanting to run over or through his dad. “You have to face this!”  
  
“I don’t want to!” Jim shouts, heedless of the cadets throwing strange glances in his direction as they carefully walk around him. “I don’t want him to fix it and I don’t want to talk about it. He’s my friend but you’re my dad and you’re dead and I don’t want to lose this!”  
  
The silence rings between them as they stare at each other, Jim’s chest heaving with excess emotion, hands curled into loose fists at his sides.  
  
“Jim—” His voice sounds broken, face twisted into a mask of pained sadness. “Jim, I—”  
  
“No!”  
  
“I won’t always be here, Jim!” George shouts at him and Jim blinks, suddenly confused.  
  
“What?” His voice cracks around the sudden lump in his throat, the backs of his eyes prickling.  
  
“Remember Kevin?” Jim nods dumbly. “He left because he finished what had been keeping him back. You helped him do that and someday, regardless of what you want, it’ll happen for me, too. I’m not supposed to be here, Jim,” he grits out, fingers white-knuckled on Jim’s shoulders and, just like when he was little, Jim thinks he can almost feel it. George squeezes his eyes shut, teeth clenched as he shakes his head. “I love you, kid, but it’s killing me to live like this.” He releases Jim’s shoulders and Jim’s chest aches with the burn of unnamable emotions. “I’m not supposed to be here,” he whispers, turning to walk away. Between one blink and the next, he’s gone and Jim’s alone on the path, late for class and at a loss, strangely unbalanced.  
  
“I wish you’d stay,” Jim whispers back.  
  
+  
  
It’s after midnight when he punches in the code of Bones’ door, eyes burning with sleeplessness and heartache. The room is dark but for the occasional electronic glimmer from a charging PADD and the chronometer on the far wall, but Jim knows this space as well as his own and it’s easy to cross from the door to Bones’ bed without tripping on anything.  
  
He strips off his uniform tunic and slips out of his pants, remembering to set his boots out of the walking path so Bones won’t trip if he rises before Jim. Carefully perching on the edge of the bed, he lifts the edge of the cover and slides in next to Bones, sighing as the familiarity of the room and its occupant settles over him. Curling up on his side, he tucks his hands away to keep from reaching for his friend, not wanting to wake him, especially since they haven’t talked since Jim stormed out of the cafeteria that morning.  
  
“Jim?” Bones mutters and Jim sighs again.  
  
“Yeah, Bones?”  
  
“’m sorry, kid. Shouldn’t’ve said anything.” He sounds mostly asleep, drawl heavy and words slow as he mutters them into the pillow. Jim closes his eyes and smiles sadly, reaching out to trace one of Bones’ eyebrows.  
  
“It’s okay, Bones.” Giving into the urge, he shifts closer, forehead touching Bones’ and hands curled carefully into the fabric of Bones’ t-shirt. He squeezes his eyes shut as tears prick at them again when Bones drapes one arm over Jim’s waist and pulls him closer.  
  
“Jim,” Bones sighs and slides back completely into sleep, Jim following shortly after.  
  
+  
  
Bones doesn’t bring up counseling again but, while Jim knows he hasn’t forgotten, mutual silence on the matter allows them to feign forgetfulness and keeps awkwardness at bay. They’ve both lost so many important people in their lives, they’re neither one willing to sacrifice their friendship over something Jim insists is trivial, despite the dark looks George shoots him for the rest of the week.  
  
They carefully settle back into their rhythms, spending Friday nights at the bar and as much time as possible together between classes. More than one of their friends comment on how they’re such an old married couple, constantly griping at each other and always joined at the hip. Jim laughs them off but, on the nights where sleep takes longer to arrive than usual, he has to admit they have a point. Not that he has all that many close friends, but he’s not even this open with Gary, despite their shared quarters. He asks George about it once, whether he and Bones come off as a couple, and George laughs for five minutes straight.  
  
“What wrong with you?” Gary asks, his face reflecting amused confusion as he walks through the door. Jim rolls his eyes and grumbles some excuse, tamping down his annoyance at George and hiding his red face by pulling out _The Lord of the Rings_ and flipping to a random spot in the book. George just snorts again, laughter winding down into gasping breaths and the occasional chuckle, blue eyes watery from his mirth and soft with some indefinable emotion.  
  
Shortly after Jim’s twenty-fourth birthday (celebrated quietly with Bones and Gary and a bottle of Romulan Ale, George hovering quietly in the background) finds Jim sorting through his belongings, trying to pack for a training course on the _Farragut_ and marveling at how much stuff he’s acquired in almost two years at the Academy.  
  
“Something wrong?” Bones asks mildly after Jim growls a Klingon curse and punches his mattress.  
  
“I’ve got too much stuff.”  
  
Bones drops the PADD he was studying and hauls himself off the couch, wandering over to where Jim has everything spread out on his bed. “This is too much stuff?” he questions, eyebrow raised.  
  
Jim frowns, considering Bones’ question, and stares down at his stuff. Granted, half the bed is covered in his civilian clothes, leaving the other half to showcase only a handful of real-paper books (including the slightly battered, well-loved copy of _The Lord of the Rings_ ), a couple PADDs, a small binder holding a hard-copy of Pike’s dissertation, and a very few other odds and ends. Picking up the miniature car, he spins one wheel and turns to look at Bones, feeling strangely hesitant  
  
“’m not used to having more than’ll fit in a duffle,” he admits, fingers tightening on the car’s cool metal. Bones studies his face for a moment, then reaches to take the car out of Jim’s hand, smiling at the tiny Corvette before tossing it back on the bed with the rest of Jim’s stuff.  
  
“I’m sure Gary’ll take care of your stuff for you,” Bones says finally, not commenting on whatever he suspects there may be in Jim’s past that makes him so unused to permanence. “He seems pretty trustworthy, despite that annoying roommate he has.” Jim punches Bones in the shoulder, smirking at Bones’ scowl.  
  
Together, they sort through Jim’s stuff and pack the necessities in his dufflebag, Bones refolding the clothes Jim’s already folding and Jim griping about perfectionist doctors in harmony with Bones’ complaints about Jim’s habits. The rest of Jim’s stuff is returned to wherever it belongs in the room. Once the bed is clear again, Jim picks up the duffle and puts it by the door. Pausing once, chewing his lip as he thinks for a second, he crouches and digs around in the bag, pulling out a book. Frown pulling at his face, he walks over to where Bones has settled back on the couch.  
  
“What now, kid?” he asks, not looking up from his PADD this time.  
  
“Bones, I—” Why is he so nervous about this? It’s just Bones, right? “Would you hold onto this for me?” he blurts, shoving _The Lord of the Rings_ at his friend. Eyebrow raised, Bones takes the book out of Jim’s hand, absently flipping through the pages as he watches Jim’s face.  
  
“Okay,” he drawls, tucking a finger between the pages and closing the book around it.  
  
“It’s just—It’s important to me, that book, and I trust Gary and everything but he doesn’t care about books and he might—I dunno, use it as a coaster or something and I—”  
  
“Jim,” George says and Jim takes a deep breath, cutting off the rambling explanation. Swallowing hard, he drops onto the other end of the couch, facing Bones.  
  
“I’m not worried about the course,” Jim assures, full conviction in his voice so that Bones’ll believe him despite what he’s asking. “But I mean—I know...things can happen in space, I’m not stupid, Bones.” He scowls when his friend snorts, shoving at Bones’ shoulder. “But, with my luck, something could go wrong—”  
  
“Probably will,” Bones mutters under his breath.  
  
“—and I just...want to know this is with someone who’ll take care of it,” he finishes softly, staring at the cover of the old book. George’s hand is on his shoulder and, instead of being a comfort, it’s an uncomfortable reminder of everything that could happen. His eyes flick in George’s direction and he shifts a little on the couch, pulling away from his dad.  
  
“Jim—”  
  
“I’m not afraid,” he insists, ‘cause he’s not. He just needs to know that book’s in good hands. And Bones’ are the best he can think of.  
  
“Okay.” This time the hand on his shoulder is warm and solid, fingers firmly closed over the curves of muscle and bone in a comforting squeeze.  
  
+

  
Bones is on-call at the clinic the night Jim gets back to Earth, a recent bout of good, old-fashioned influenza having swept through the campus with the changing seasons. Jim understands, though he can’t seem to shake the leaden lump that settles in the pit of his stomach, even when they make plans for both breakfast and lunch the next day. At loose ends with his best friend at work and his roommate off to a late-night astronav class, Jim ditches his duffle in his empty dorm room and prowls off to the local bars, searching for the one other person that would be waiting for his return.  
  
“Jim!” Gaila cries happily, bouncing down off her barstool to sling her arms around his neck. He buries his face in her shoulder and smiles against her skin, the cool smoothness of her touch the most welcoming thing he’s felt in months.  
  
“Hey, babe,” he replies when he pulls back, pecking a kiss to her lips before claiming the stool next to hers. The bartender, a familiar face though Jim can’t pinpoint a name, grins and nods at him in greeting, sliding a cold beer and a bright pink Cosmo in front of them.  
  
They chat for a while about his training course, discussing the ins and outs of the ship’s levels. Gaila, on the Engineering track, eagerly questions him about the Engineering bay and the warp drives, the way the engines respond and how open the Chief Engineer was to new ideas and theories. He keeps up with her with ease, answering most of her questions, no matter how esoteric they come across — though she never spent much time with him, his mom was an engineer and, even at a young age, Jim had soaked up knowledge like a sponge. His interests are wide and varied and he enjoys the technical side of ships as much as the command side.  
  
Several drinks later finds his back slamming against the wall outside the door to Gaila’s room, her mouth hot and wet against his, sweet with the drinks she’s had and the promise of a proper homecoming. He grins into the kiss and turns them, swallowing her laugh as her back lands solidly against the door. Slipping a knee between her thighs, they tangle together in the hallway, touching skin-to-skin in as many places as possible without actually removing any clothes.  
  
“My...roommate’s probably...inside,” she gasps between kisses, fingers digging into the back of his neck. She slides one leg up around his waist and slowly blinks at him, a coy smile twisting her lips. He licks his way into that grin and curls his fingers around one of her wrists, slapping her palm on the reader as she giggles into his mouth.  
  
They literally tumble through the door when it opens sooner than Jim’s inebriated mind expects, though he manages to twist in time to take the brunt of their weight. Gaila huffs a laugh at his moan, the jolt of their falling together doing all sorts of wonderful things for the way she’s wrapped around him. He yanks her down for another kiss, blinking blearily when she pulls away with a gasp as a PADD clatters to the floor behind his head.  
  
“What did we agree on, Gaila?” a familiar voice asks. Gaila grins sheepishly, though her eyes still shine unrepentantly. Frowning groggily, Jim tilts his head back, gaze crawling up from a pair of delicate brown feet (with bright red-painted toenails, he notes randomly) to graceful, not-knobby knees, to slender arms crossed firmly over a trim waist, to a face he’s seen only occasionally since his recruitment almost two years ago.  
  
“Uhura!” he slurs, face pulling into a smirk when her face shifts to reflect her distaste at their mutual recognition of each other.  
  
“Kirk,” she bites out, dark eyes snapping as she glares down at him (Bones is abruptly brought to mind and the swoop Jim’s stomach gives leaves him feeling vaguely nauseous as he stares up at her). “I thought we had an agreement, Gaila,” Uhura mentions, transferring her attention to the Orion currently trying to unobtrusively detangle her limbs from Jim’s.  
  
“We did, N—” Uhura barks something in Orion, too fast for Jim to catch, and Gaila breaks off, biting her lip. She looks more ashamed at the almost mention of Uhura’s elusive first name than she has since they fell into the room. “Jim was just leaving,” she adds, pulling to her feet in one graceful motion. Jim lays there on the floor, mildly confused, until Gaila prods him with one foot. He rolls to his feet and, wobbling only a little, offers a sloppy salute as he heads to the door.  
  
“Ladies,” he says with a smirk, winking at Gaila, who giggles, the sound ringing out into the corridor after Uhura’s slapped the buttons to lock the door.  
  
“What now?” George asks and Jim nearly jumps out of his skin.  
  
“Shit!” He leans heavily against the wall, head spinning with adrenaline from the scare, and glares at George. “Please God, tell me you weren’t there this whole time,” he huffs, stalking down the hallway away from Gaila’s room.  
  
“God, no,” George replies, “I have some sense of decency. And, seriously, watching you with one of your flings is wrong on so many levels, I don’t even want to _start_ counting.”  
  
“Gaila’s not just a fling,” Jim protests, glancing over his shoulder at George as he makes his way out of the building. The adrenaline’s killed most of his buzz and there’s an itch under his skin, the rain now falling over the campus an irritant against his face as he heads back to the bar.  
  
He stays until last call this time, managing to keep his hands and eyes to himself the entire time — not that he doesn’t want a fight, but he’d promised himself earlier that he wouldn’t resort to that so soon after landing. He staggers out into the rain with the rest of the meager crowd, tripping more than once over his own feet as he makes his way back toward campus. George leads him, the warm sound of his voice a beacon through the rain-and-beer-fogged night. Jim follows blindly, head spinning from the alcohol, and takes his cues from George, turning when told, avoiding potholes and cracks in the sidewalk, and managing to make it to the safety of a building in one piece.  
  
“C’mon, Jim, the code, I can’t do it, you’re gonna have to,” George coaxes, shimmering vaguely in the half-light of the corridor as Jim squint at the blurry number pad. “5-5-9-6, Jim,” he’s told, the numbers unfamiliar under his fingers.  
  
“Tha’s not th’ code to my room,” he mutters right as the door slides open and dumps him into the dark room.  
  
“Jim?” he hears Bones call, but the light’s too low and he’s too drunk to figure out where it’s coming from.  
  
“Bones! George, why’d you take me t’Bones’ room?” Jim asks loudly, staring up at George, outlined by the light from the hallway.  
  
“Jim, is there someone else there?” Bones’ voice is closer now and Jim feels a grin slide across his face as Bones steps into the pool of light from the hallway, hair going in all directions and eyes bleary. Bones looks around, pokes his head out into the hall, and sighs, manually keying the door shut before reaching down to grab Jim’s arm and haul him to his feet. “Y’know, kid, when I gave you my key-code, it wasn’t so you could make an ass of yourself after one too many,” he chides half-heartedly, shoving Jim in the direction of the bed.  
  
“Hey, _I_ was all for headin’ back t’my own room,” Jim protests, wincing as Bones roughly tugs off Jim’s boots and tosses them over in the corner. “ _George_ decided I needed to head here.”  
  
“George thinks you need to shut your mouth if you don’t wanna have to answer to more than just showing up in the middle of the night,” George comments mildly from somewhere in the darkness of the room.  
  
Bones calls up the lights and does a cursory sweep with his tricorder, lifting Jim’s eyelids to check his pupils. “George sayin’ anything else?” he asks casually, putting away the tricorder and helping Jim out of his jacket and wet jeans, producing a towel out of nowhere to get the worst of the water off his skin and hair.  
  
“Just that I oughta shut up,” Jim sighs, slumping back against the pillows. Bones prods him in the stomach to make him stop hogging the bed and crawls in after him, throwing the covers over both of them and killing the lights.  
  
“Sounds like good advice to me.”  
  
Jim drifts slowly on the tide of his exhaustion and inebriation, feeling the last three months crash down over him. It wasn’t tough to be on the ship and the training course had been a breeze, but it’d been stressful, to a degree, what with the late shifts he’d been given the majority of the time and the hot-and-cold reactions to his last name and reputation. He hadn’t let it bother him, any more than he let it get to him on the ground, and eventually he’d found an even keel, even garnering a few new acquaintances to hang with during meals and off-hours. But it’s nice to be around Bones again, nice to know he’s back with people who’ll let him be himself but aren’t afraid to deal him a swift kick in the ass if he needs it.  
  
“Bones,” he whispers, blinking and feeling the way his eyelids don’t quite move at the same time.  
  
“What, kid?” Bones sighs, voice muffled by pillow, but the words are leaden, already sinking into sleep as he exhales once more and goes limp against Jim’s back, arm heavy over Jim’s shoulder.  
  
“I missed you,” Jim says anyway, nuzzling his nose into the pillow and breathing in the scent of his best friend, letting it soothe him to sleep.  
  
+  
  
It’s odd, settling back into regular classes at the Academy after the training course. Within a week, he finds himself several days ahead in his classwork and bored, too used to the busier ship’s schedule after his stint on the _Farragut_. He drifts around campus during his spare time, researching the _Kobayashi Maru_ in the library and outlining a plan to finally beat the unbeatable. He pesters Bones and flirts with Gaila, dragging her back to his dorm several times, though they always seem to be interrupted. It gets to be a running joke between them, their absolute inability to make it past second base, but it doesn’t help the restless feeling growing steadily in the back of Jim’s mind.  
  
It also doesn’t help him direct his focus _away_ from his best friend.  
  
He’s always known Bones is an attractive man, has even shoved any number of similarly attractive beings in the man’s direction in an effort to be a good friend (and banish the strange guilt he feels when leaving him alone at the end of a night out). He’s seen the appreciative little looks Gaila tosses Bones’ way occasionally, noticed the contemplative way George watches them, the odd little glint in his eyes when Jim talks about the doctor. He’s not sure how he _feels_ about that, but he knows it’s all there.  
  
But, bored as he is, there’s little else to attract and keep his attention. So he shows up at Bones’ dorm more often, drags the man out to bars after classes on Fridays and helps him study for the occasional test. He learns, in a matter of days, how Bones takes his coffee differently at the beginning of the day than the end, what sort of music he prefers to listen to while doing homework, and which of the interns annoy him most this semester. He also, in the space of a day, learns about the most treasured aspect of his life prior to Starfleet and the most closely hidden skeleton in his closet.  
  
It happens on a random Wednesday, after Jim’s last class of the day. He’s already got the homework done through the next exam and Gaila and Gary are both busy for the night. At loose ends, he changes into casual clothes and wanders across the campus, chatting quietly with George about possible scenarios to use on the _Kobayashi Maru_ and whether or not the latest campus gossip about Archer’s missing dog is true. He’s not really paying attention to where his feet are taking him, but he’s not surprised when he finds himself in front of Bones’ door. He is surprised, though, when he hears what sounds like something thudding against the wall — Bones’ shift at the clinic runs ‘til midnight on Wednesdays.  
  
“No, Jim, don’t do that,” George cautions, reaching out and putting a hand across Jim’s when he moves to key in the access code. An odd shiver races down Jim’s back as a memory from his fifth birthday chases across his mind. That was before he’d understood who and what George was, when all he knew was that it was his birthday and his mom was unusually sad. Wide-eyed, Jim stares at George, whose blue eyes plead with Jim to listen to him for once.  
  
Chewing his lip, Jim pulls out his comm and sends a quick text to Bones. Listening closely, he hears the familiar chime of Bones’ comm on the other side of the door and, sure enough, within seconds he receives a response. In perfect grammar and polite Southern manners, the message asks Jim to please leave him alone, he’ll see him at breakfast tomorrow. Frowning, Jim texts Bones one more time, asking if he’s sure. The return text is just as polite and just as maddeningly calm, completely at odds with the muffled snarl of words Jim’d heard through the door, as Bones assures him that, no, nothing’s wrong, he’ll see him tomorrow.  
  
“Do you know what’s wrong with Bones?” Jim asks his dad, a twisting swirl of nerves curling uncomfortably in his stomach. George hesitates, blue eyes locked on Bones’ door as he considers Jim’s question.  
  
“All men have their ghosts, Jim, their burdens. You’re just one of the few that can see them,” he says slowly, turning thoughtful eyes on his son. “I think McCoy’s have...finally caught up with him.” George shrugs, but Jim can see the worry deep in his eyes.  
  
“I’m going in there,” Jim says, reaching out to key open the door.  
  
“Jim—”  
  
“He’s always been there for me, when I’ve had a bad day,” Jim reminds him, finger hesitating over the last number. “I can’t not do the same for him.” George nods and smiles fondly at his son.  
  
“I’ll leave you alone for this then. Me hovering over your shoulder won’t help either of you,” George says, clapping a hand on Jim’s shoulder, though of course there’s no feeling of impact. Jim grits his teeth at the action, hating the reminder. George turns to walk back down the hallway, but Jim hears him mutter under his breath, “Especially McCoy,” as he does. He doesn’t get the chance to ask about the cryptic comment before he’s left alone in the hall, George disappearing without a sound. Taking a deep breath, he keys the last number and watches as the door slides open.  
  
The first thing he notices (and he’s not quite sure what’s going on, but this is _weird_ , the weirdest thing since George showed up all those years ago) is the guy standing quietly in the corner. He looks like Bones, with his dark hair and solid build, the line of his jaw and the steadiness of his gaze as he watches Jim. His eyes, though — Jim squints and realizes that, yes, his eyes really are blue, as clear and brilliant as Jim’s own. It’s the quietly concerned yearning in his expression, though, so like the one George wears occasionally, that’s the final clue and Jim abruptly realizes why George left so easily when he realized there was no keeping Jim out of Bones’ room.  
  
The man in the corner is Bones’ father.  
  
Frowning, Jim steps fully into the room, letting the door slide closed behind him as Bones finally lifts his head.  
  
“Told you to go away,” Bones growls, dropping his head back onto his arms, glaring bleakly at the glass of bourbon sitting by his elbow. Jim takes the opportunity to glance around the room and is surprised to see Bones’ uniform and scrubs tossed haphazardly on the floor, the bed unmade, and several PADDs scattered across the desk instead of stacked neatly on a corner. The vidscreen is on, though muted, and the flickering images are the only light in the room.  
  
“Yeah, well, you know how I am with doing what I’m told,” he comments lightly, perching on the corner of the desk, eyes on the elder McCoy hovering in the corner. “What’s up, Bones?”  
  
“The ceiling. The sky. Space. Take your pick.”  
  
“Ha ha, McCoy,” Jim volleys back, crossing his arms across his chest and glancing down at Bones, who’s lifted his head out of the cradle of his arms and is staring without seeing at his father. Jim wonders if, on some level, he knows he’s there. “Really, Bones. What’s up?”  
  
Bones doesn’t say anything, but the elder McCoy moves from the corner, standing right behind his son, hands hovering about Bones’ shoulders, a breath away from actual touch. His blue eyes are full of guilt and self-reproach and sadness and, suddenly, Jim wishes he knew the man’s name, wishes it so strongly his breath catches in his throat. “I died three years ago today,” McCoy says, his voice low and aching, but so very like Bones’. Jim wonders what Bones’ mom looked like, whether he takes after her in any way at all.  
  
“Little girl came through the ER today,” Bones mutters, little more than a vibration in the air as he buries his face in his arms again. “Seven years old, same as Joanna. God, that beautiful little girl.” Bones’ shoulders hitch once and Jim finds himself reaching out to comfort him with a touch and pulls his hand back, blinking in surprise and confusion.  
  
“Joanna?” he mouths, frowning with bewilderment at McCoy — both of them.  
  
“My granddaughter,” the elder replies. “You mean, he didn’t tell you?” Jim shakes his head, stunned at the revelation.  
  
“Bones—”  
  
“She bled out on my table, Jim, internal bleeding from her own Goddamned father’s fist in her gut.” Jim chokes on his next breath, remembering the bruises he’d hidden under his clothes as a child, and almost misses what Bones says next. “What use is a doctor who can’t heal people?”  
  
“What? _Bones_ ,” Jim says, hands on Bones’ shoulders and shaking him gently until he raises his eyes to meet Jim’s. “What are you talking about? You’re a great doctor. You—That was an accident, not your fault, you—”  
  
“Dammit, Jim, that little girl’s life was in my hands and I just let it slide through my fingers! You didn’t see her mother when she was brought in, didn’t hear the way she pleaded with me, begged me to make it better, to help her, to-to fix it, take away the pain, to—” Bones’ hands are tight around Jim’s wrists, his eyes anguished as he stares up at him. Jim swallows, hearing more to the words than just what Bones is saying. Confused, he looks to the elder McCoy, standing nearby with eyes just as anguished as his son’s.  
  
“It was what I asked of him,” he explains, helplessly holding out pleading hands. Jim shivers, wishing George was here. But he’s on his own and terribly sure he knows what the McCoys are telling him.  
  
“Bones, what happened?” he asks quietly. Bones’ eyes skitter around as he swallows heavily before his gaze finally settles back on Jim’s face.  
  
“I killed him, Jim.” There’s barely sound to the words, but they’re as heavy as lead and just as poisonous.  
  
“What happened?” Jim asks again, knowing there’s more to the story – Bones is not the kind of person to commit murder, not with his strict adherence to his oath as a doctor.  
  
And the story slowly comes out – his father’s long illness and all of the things Bones did to try to cure him, the slow unraveling of his marriage and his ex-wife’s bleak insistence that they couldn’t fix it, the call from the hospital one month after his dad’s funeral and his daughter’s wailing sobs the day her mother drove away from the McCoy farmhouse. Jim sits in silence on the edge of the desk, listening to Bones’ broken voice as he gives up his history, the elder McCoy – David, Bones had said at one point – hovering nearby. Finally, Bones falls silent, staring bleakly at the desktop as he traces a finger absently around the lip of his glass.  
  
“He did everything he could,” David murmurs, walking over to reach out to his son, his expression unreadable but so sad. “And in the end, he only did what I asked of him. He had no way of knowing they’d find the cure that next month.” He cups the side of Bones’ face and Bones shakes his head morosely, turning melancholy eyes on Jim as he waits for Jim’s response.  
  
“Bones, it’s not your fault,” Jim breathes, the words coming out of nowhere, just as they did when he spoke with Kevin’s mom all those years ago. “It was wrong of your dad to ask so much of you and you made a mistake taking over sole care of him, but you didn’t kill him just because you didn’t find the cure or because you did what he asked you to. _It’s not your fault._ ”  
  
“Tell him I’m happy now,” David says, blue eyes shining as he looks at Jim. “I’m not sick, I’m not hurting, I’m not lonely – I’ve got his mama back now. I just— He’s been hurting for so long, all tied up in knots over what happened and so determined no one he cared for would ever be lost on his watch. He needs to let this go and move on, remember the good times, all the years when he was growing up and everything before I got sick.”  
  
Jim’s just a conduit now, speaking to Bones for his father, doing everything in his power to convince his friend it’s okay, his father’s okay, he doesn’t need to feel guilty about it anymore, that even his marriage falling apart wasn’t entirely his fault. And Bones _listens_ , eyes dark and serious, trained on Jim’s face the entire time, until he runs out of words and slumps limply in his perch on the desk. Then Bones ducks his head, bangs hiding his eyes from Jim’s gaze as Jim sits there panting, worn out in a way he can’t recall ever being before. Eventually Bones raises his head again and looks at Jim.  
  
“Okay, Jim,” is all he says, eyes red-rimmed and tired but something like a smile hovers near the corners of his mouth and the lines in his face seem to run less deep than Jim’s ever known them to. “Okay.”  
  
Jim smiles back and hauls himself to his feet, barely noticing that David’s disappeared as he wobbles slightly and his knees threaten to dump him back against the desktop. Bones stands and puts away the glass and bottle, swiping a hand across his eyes when his back is turned to Jim. Jim stumbles over to turn off the quiet vidscreen, weaving his way through Bones’ room to get to the door. He’s just about to key it open and tell Bones he’ll see him tomorrow, when Bones calls out to him.  
  
“Hey, where d’you think you’re going?” he says, voice gruff. “You’re not in any shape for the walk back to your dorm. Lights, fifty percent,” he commands and the sudden illumination has Jim squinting and off-balance, making it easy for Bones to tow him back over to the bed. He kicks off his boots and collapses on top of the covers, while Bones crawls under the blankets and buries his head in a pillow.  
  
They lay in silence and Jim is almost asleep when Bones speaks again.  
  
“Thank you, Jim,” he whispers, voice muffled by the pillow, and Jim flops over onto his side and slings his arm over Bones’ shoulders in response.  
  
“You did good, son,” Jim hears softly over his shoulder and he can’t be sure which father says it, or who’s meant to hear it.  
  
+  
  
“What the hell were you thinking, hacking the _Kobayashi Maru_?!” George bellows at him as soon as he walks into his dorm room. He’s surprised by the outburst, but only because of the timing – he’s not stupid enough to believe he isn’t going to catch nine kinds of hell for this.  
  
“I told you I was going to beat it. Didn’t you believe me?” he asks coolly, efficiently exchanging his reds for casual clothes. He’s not proud of himself for stooping to this level to get his point across, but he firmly believes in what he posed to Bones earlier – it’s _wrong_ that no one’s passed the exam and the look he’d gotten of the coding told him both exactly what he’d expected and much more than that. Rewriting the code was the only way to make good on his promise to George and himself.  
  
“What the hell do you think you’re doing now? Celebrating your grand victory?” George queries snidely, arms crossed over his chest and expression the closest to a sneer Jim’s ever seen it.  
  
“Groveling,” Jim answers shortly, pulling on his jacket and leaning down to lace his boots. “Did you know,” he asks casually, straightening to turn and look calmly at George, “that Orion women talk in their sleep?” George’s mouth goes slack with furious shock and he advances a step, looking for all the world as though he might attempt to deck his son. “I’m gonna go apologize to Gaila, explain everything, tell her exactly what happened so she can see about fixing that particular character trait.” Gaila’s not the most ambitious soul, but her skills are going to take her to the very top and there are some parts of a starship’s programming, layout, and engineering that are top secret, for good reason – finding some way to stop her talking in her sleep will ensure her safety in more than one way.  
  
“You—”  
  
“I did what I had to do, just as you did once,” Jim snaps, eyes blazing as he rounds on his father. “Don’t tell me about duty or right and wrong. I’m a Starfleet cadet less than six months away from graduation and—” he holds up a hand and barrels on as George opens his mouth to speak, “—I _know_ I’m still learning but I also know _I’m_ right and _they’re_ wrong.”  
  
George studies his face for a moment, eyes shadowed and unreadable as sunlight through the window behind him limns him in gold. He nods shortly, once, and turns away, staring through the window.  
  
“McCoy’s waiting for you at the front door. Take the back if you want to talk to Gaila,” he says softly and Jim’s struck by the need to say something, to apologize or explain, but he stands by his actions, all of them, even sticking up for himself and yelling at his dad.  
  
In the end, he doesn’t say a thing, just nods at George’s back and steps through the door, the image of George outlined in sunlight lingering at the back of his mind.  
  
+  
  
It’s not until he makes it down to the MedBay that he has a chance to finally _breathe_. It’s been non-stop madness since the distress call came in and between stowing away, fighting Romulans, and saving the day, he’s exhausted, worn down to the bone, and seconds away from collapse.  
  
Which occurs just as the doors to the ‘Bay slide open.  
  
“Goddammit, Jim,” he hears Bones say, the words floating over his head as he leans into the strong warmth of Bones’ body. They replay their first entrance into the MedBay, Jim’s arm slung over Bones’ shoulders as they make their way to an empty biobed, and he allows himself to relax, to submit to the staff’s ministrations and the innumerable hypos Bones jabs into his neck. He’s tired and beat to shit and the ship and everyone aboard her aren’t in much better shape, but they’re at the bottom of the well and things can only go up from here.  
  
Minutes later – or hours, possibly; he’s not quite sure, what with the way everything went soft and floaty after that last hypo – the MedBay settles back into a sort of silence, broken only by the occasional murmur between nurses and beeping machinery. Jim drifts, eyes closed and body limp, until he feels someone step up close to the bed.  
  
“Y’did it, kid,” he hears Bones murmur, seconds before fingers thread through his hair, stroking and soothing. He thinks he smiles faintly, tries to say Bones’ name, but the fingers in his hair feel so good.  
  
He sleeps.  
  
+  
  
In the dream, he’s back in his dorm room and so is George, facing the window, outlined in gold.  
  
“George?” he questions, unsure of what’s going on; he’s never dreamed of his father before, not even in that time before the Academy. George doesn’t answer, though, doesn’t even move until, in a small voice, Jim asks, “Dad?”  
  
“Hey, Jimmy,” George says with a smile, eyes crinkled and tired as he turns away from the window. He steps deeper into the room, settles on Gary’s bed and gestures for Jim to take a seat on his own.  
  
“George, what’s going on?”  
  
“You did it, Jimmy,” George tells him, a sad sort of relief curling the side of his mouth. “You fixed what was keeping me back.”  
  
“Wha—?”  
  
“Just like Kevin. Just like David.”  
  
“No,” Jim breathes, dreadful anticipation curling cold in the pit of his stomach.  
  
“This is what it took,” George says with a nod, eyes bright with pride. “You can make it on your own now. You don’t need me anymore.”  
  
“I do need you,” Jim vows, the back of his neck hot and the palms of his hands clammy. He feels sick, desperately searching for the words that’ll make George stay. “I don’t want you to leave,” he begs.  
  
George smiles and it’s ineffably tender. “I know, Jimmy. I never wanted to leave you,” he reminds him, the first thing he’d said when five-year-old Jim had figured out who he was. “I need you to believe me, okay? I never wanted to leave you.”  
  
“You’re leaving me now,” Jim forces out, throat tight and aching with the tears gathering behind his eyes.  
  
“Oh, Jimmy, I’m never really gone.” He’s next to Jim on the bed, suddenly, and his hand’s on Jim’s cheek and Jim can _feel it_ , oh, God.  
  
“ _Dad_ ,” Jim says, lurching forward to wrap his arms around George’s back, to bury his face in George’s shoulder, while George hugs him back, hands warm and solid and _there_ as they rub up and down Jim’s back.  
  
“I’ll never be far, okay, kiddo? I’ll always be there to keep an eye on you.”  
  
“No, no, no, no, no,” Jim moans, curling his fingers tight in the cotton of George’s shirt.  
  
“Tell McCoy, Jim. Tell him everything, don’t leave anything out. He’ll believe you now,” George promises. “You need each other, Jim. Don’t let that get away. And don’t waste time – it’s not as infinite as you may feel it is,” he warns, pulling out of Jim’s grasp. Jim sniffles, scrubbing his sleeve across his face, one hand still tight on George’s wrist. “C’mon, kiddo, lay down.”  
  
Jim does and, like a child, George tucks him into the bed, running a gentle hand through Jim’s hair, over and over again. Thumb tracing Jim’s cheek, he leans down and kisses Jim’s forehead.  
  
“Remember me, Jim, and I’ll never be far away,” he says, softly in Jim’s ear, and Jim feels his eyelids drooping and he fights it off, clinging tighter to George’s sleeve as sleep comes fast and hard.  
  
Unwillingly, he closes his eyes and when he opens them again, he’s in the MedBay.  
  
+  
  
Two days later, he presses the call-button for Bones’ quarters, hands dropping to curl in loose fists as he waits for a response. The door slides open to reveal Bones’ quizzical face, forehead furrowed as he realizes it’s Jim outside his door.  
  
“Since when do you ring doorbells?” he asks, stepping aside to allow Jim into the room. Jim slides past him and walks over to the couch, hovering near it but not taking a seat. Bones shoots him another confused look as he regains his seat, looking up at Jim with worry in his eyes. “Jim, what’s—”  
  
“I need to tell you something,” Jim says, perching on the other side of the couch so he can face his friend. Bones turns and nods, eyes dark and serious.  
  
“Okay, Jim.”  
  
Jim draws a shuddering breath and starts to speak. “On my fifth birthday, I saw my father for the first time,” he states, matter-of-factly, and watches as Bones’ eyes widen.  
  
“Jim—”  
  
“That was a particularly difficult birthday for my mom, for whatever reason, and I was about to go, I dunno, comfort her or something, when a hand appeared over my own and an unknown man kindly told me not to do that. He told me his name was George, but I didn’t realize he was my dad until a month later, when I was poking through some of my brother’s things and I found pictures from their wedding.”  
  
He tells Bones the story, watching in detached amusement as Bones’ eyes get wider and wider, eyebrows creeping steadily higher on his forehead. He tells him that George was the first person to read him _The Fellowship of the Ring_ , that it was George that convinced him to not follow Sam any of the times his brother tried to run away. He tells him the events leading up to his trip to Tarsus, how George gave him instructions and helped him keep himself and a small group of kids alive until Starfleet arrived. He mentions Kevin and how Jim was able to help the little boy move on – that’s when Bones swallows harshly and a flicker of belief sparks in his eyes.  
  
He tells him about all of the times he’d study with George, during high school and middle school and even at the Academy. How George would try to talk him down out of fights with the older kids, how he was always there whenever Jim had a bad dream or woke up in the hospital after a fight turned out bad. He tells Bones about the seven years he spent by himself, having wished his father away one bitter January night, and how George reappeared behind Chris Pike’s shoulder in that rundown Iowa bar three years ago. Quietly, almost hesitantly, he tells Bones about seeing David McCoy, about how the words he spoke that night weren’t his but David’s.  
  
And, moisture gathering in stormy hazel eyes, Bones believes.  
  
+  
  
They’re eating dinner in Bones’ quarters, 36 hours away from drydock over San Francisco, when Jim sets down his fork, wipes his mouth with his napkin, plants his elbows on the table and just looks at Bones.  
  
“What?” he asks, eyebrows quirked in a mild glare. Jim shakes his head, shifts to rest his forehead against his clasped hands, and laughs quietly to himself.  
  
“You really only wanted to take care of me, didn’t you, Bones?” he says, glancing up at his companion with a quick flick of blue eyes. Faint color rises high in Bones’ cheeks and he looks away.  
  
“I duhknow what you’re talkin’ about,” he gruffs but they know each other too well at this point, three years as close friends and the past few weeks in each other’s pockets, for Jim not to be able to read the sheen in Bones’ eyes, the way the corner of his mouth can’t decide if it wants to curve up or down.  
  
“All those offers to talk to someone, to get help, so I didn’t get drummed out,” Jim reminds him.  
  
“Yeah, well...”  
  
Jim considers him for a second, mouth resting lightly against his hands. “You should’ve left me in the hangar.”  
  
Sharp hazel eyes snap to his face, framed above by angry eyebrows and below by a formidable scowl. “Dammit, Jim, I wasn’t gonna—”  
  
“—leave me. I know, Bones.” He leans back in his seat and huffs a laugh under his breath, grin growing out of his control and spreading into a smile. He shakes his head, still smiling. “Ah, George was right,” he says, standing.  
  
Bones’ face draws into a question mark as Jim pulls him to his feet. Standing, they’re just about the same height, if neither one of them slouches, and Jim’s pleased by it, in a way he hasn’t let himself be before. He steps up close to Bones, a breath away from touching, and looks him in the eye, searching, studying.  
  
Hoping.  
  
And then he sees it, that quick spark of _something_. He grins a brief flash of teeth and loops his hand around the back of Bones’ neck, pulling him forward until their lips meet.  
  
+  
  
They’re lying in Bones’ bed, legs tangled comfortably together and nothing – not even clothes – between them. Bones’ shift is supposed to start within the next fifteen minutes and Jim’s needed on the Bridge shortly after that to start coordinating docking procedures but, at this moment, neither one of them can bring themselves to care much.  
  
Jim’s tracing invisible lines between the freckles on Bones’ back when Bones shifts his head on the pillow until he can see Jim with both eyes and speak unhindered.  
  
“What was George right about?” he asks and it takes Jim a minute to scroll back through conversations, back through hours and emotions, until he finds the comment Bones is referencing.  
  
“He said we needed each other,” he answers, fingertips skimming over the knobs of Bones’ spine. He leans down and presses a kiss to the point of Bones’ shoulderblade.  
  
“Hmm,” Bones hums, blinking lazy hazel eyes at him.  
  
“He said I didn’t need him anymore.”  
  
Bones is silent, eyes slipping shut, and Jim wonders if he’s fallen back to sleep. But he rolls over onto his side, legs sliding away from Jim’s, and opens his eyes, studying Jim’s face.  
  
“Do you?”  
  
“I think... I finally found someone I needed more,” Jim says and something slips free in his chest as Bones smiles at him, leans over to kiss him softly once, twice, three times, until Jim rolls them back on the bed, hands roaming with vague purpose as Bones chuckles into his mouth and wraps firm arms around his shoulders.  
  
+  
  
George isn’t there when they first set foot back on Earth, not even in passing flashes or glimpses.  
  
Bones is, though. That makes it all right.

**Author's Note:**

> Written as a fill for this prompt at the buckleup_meme:
> 
> For whatever reason (ghost, mental illness, etc.), Jim is able to see his dead father. He grows up being able to see, talk and interact with him. No one else is able to see George though and his mother turns a blind eye to Jim's behavior. Jim goes on to Starfleet and meets and begins a relationship with Bones, who is convinced Jim suffers from a mental illness and is determined to help him. Jim doesn't really want help though and doesn't want to lose his father.


End file.
